Mezzamorphis - Promotion, Reception, and Response

Promotion, Reception, and Response

The promotional UK tour featured American rock band Switchfoot as support. Delirious? also performed several songs live at Glastonbury Festival.

The first single, "See The Star", was released in the UK in 1999, selling over 5,000 copies in the first day and 12,000 copies in the first week. This was enough to push it to number 16 in the UK Singles Charts and number two in the indies — the highest chart position ever held by a Delirious? single. A year later, the band released "It's OK", which entered the singles charts at number eighteen and the indie charts at number three. The song was featured an episode of the US television series Get Real. "Gravity" was planned to be released as a single in the UK, but was only released as a radio single in the US, due to Radio One's refusal to playlist the band.

Mezzamorphis was released on 12 April 1999 in the United Kingdom. Despite the extensive publicity campaign, the album debuted at number 25 in the UK Album Charts and number 2 in the indies, lower than the band's first album, King of Fools; however, it was the second consecutive Top 30 release for the band. The album also reached number 2 in the CCM charts in America and number 137 in the Billboard 200 (number 5 in the Heatseekers) following its 8 June release.

Critical response was generally positive in both the secular and UK Christian music media. Rock Sound magazine praised "the band's talent for writing instant rock/pop songs" and stated, "it shouldn't be long before Delirious? claim their rightful place as one of Britain's brightest new bands", whilst Q magazine named them "the hottest thing in Christian rock" and predicted, "Mezzamorphis will be the album that makes them". The UK Christian music magazine Cross Rhythms awarded the album a full ten-square rating, calling the album an "absolute classic", whilst Jesus Freak Hideout stated, "the musical growth is evident... and appreciated". The album also drew comparisons to U2's anthemic qualities and was praised for its modern production.

In the United States, the Virgin marketed version omitted two songs ("Kiss Your Feet" and "Jesus' Blood") that were included on the Sparrow version. Each of these contained explicit faith references. Additionally, the album caused some controversy in the US Christian music scene due to the lyric "she's as pretty as hell" in the song "It's OK". The band had left the song off promotional copies of the album, and Sparrow Records had considered leaving the song off the album; several Christian retailers dropped the album amongst the complaints. Smith wrote a response to the controversy on the band's website; however, many fans continued to believe that the band had left Christian rock for the secular industry. The band also received criticism for the lack of the word "Jesus" on the album. "We recognise the ultimate validity of the criticisms leveled against us," responded lead singer Martin Smith, "and we feel as a band that this just speaks to the spiritual and intellectual maturity of our listening audience and Christians in general, for that matter."