innocence mission - classic or dud?

their 1986 Tending the Rose Garden EP is pretty funny — it's like Debbie Gibson meets 10,000 Maniacs with CCM lyrics, and they obviously had a huge stylistic overhaul between that and their debut album. I wonder if they ever disowned it the way Tori Amos disowned Y Kant Tori Read.

lol, according to one blogger, the band 'hate [Tending the Rose Garden] so much they've tried to buy back all 1,000 copies to destroy them', but idk if there's any truth to that

I haven't heard the new album yet, but 'Tom On The Boulevard' sounds very nice. their style has changed very little since Birds of My Neighborhood, but that doesn't really bother me.

new album out, y'all

this band is so strange and wonderful

Just found out! Can't wait to hear. Easily one of my favorite bands.

I've just finished school for the summer; I'm in the yawning hollows of full-body exhaustion. The wind is up and light is falling slantwise through the crowns of oak trees. Sun on the Square couldn't be more perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RT5tZtCAD0

Awesome

I didn't realize they were still around. I did like Glow at the time, I'll check out the later stuff. They always struck me as earnest Catholic summer camp strummers which I guess they actually are (they gave all the proceeds of one album to charity apparently). There was certainly a time in the 90's when the taint of religiosity around any 'alternative' band was kind of a death knell (Velour 100 caught up in this as well ... plus the endless debates about whether His Name Is Alive were actually secret church goers). Seems a bit ridiculous now.

That's glorious.

Indeed. I saw them at TT the Bears in Cambridge, MA on the "Glow" tour and they were as good as you'd expect, very humble. I jumped off the train a decade ago - the "Street Map" EP was the last thing of theirs I really loved - but I'm really glad they're still going.

I still adore the first two indie-rock albums before they went the folky route. Great example of where the underground was before Nirvana came and changed everything.

Seems improbable that they've been around for the best part of 40 years and are still regularly putting out such quietly beautiful music. The new one is lovely.

never listened to them before this, but very into this new album. a perfect winter album tbh

I put it on unassumingly, out of curiosity after your post, and it just stopped me in my tracks.

wild, i just listened to them for the first time last night. v pretty stuff

Back in the early days of AAA radio, my local station used to play "Black Sheep Wall" from the debut. I picked up a promo cassette, loved it, then never really heard another thing they've done since. Relistening to the debut today for the first time in years, it really is a remarkably lovely, assured performance and production.

Hadn't actually heard them before but that NPR performance upthread is amazing.

There was certainly a time in the 90's when the taint of religiosity around any 'alternative' band was kind of a death knell (Velour 100 caught up in this as well ... plus the endless debates about whether His Name Is Alive were actually secret church goers). Seems a bit ridiculous now.

― akm, Thursday, December 6, 2018 3:36 AM

Did it hurt Low?

My friend mentioned them last night, and all I could recall was "The Lakes of Canada" and "Bright as Yellow," then today stumbled on this one on YouTube, and it's just absolutely stunning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ABOGpyu18I

Live in a Cleveland Borders Books in 1996.

I haven't been into their work the past dozen years or so - it's ok, just hasn't grabbed me - but Karen Peris' new solo album ("A Song Is Way Above The Lawn") is great, full of beauty and tenderness, wonderful piano and strings, and a sweetness that is refreshing in this world.

https://theinnocencemission.bandcamp.com/album/a-song-is-way-above-the-lawn