Innocence Is Every Excuse

Five years is a long time to wait for a new The Innocence Mission album, right? What do you mean, you’ve never heard of The Innocence Mission?

A short bio. Karen and Don Peris met at a school production of Godspell. Three albums on A&M between ’89 and ’95. Originally augmented by a full band,but since ‘99s Birds Of My Neighborhood an occasional threesome with Mike Bitts. Skated the thin ice of celebrity with songs included on the Empire Records film and episodes of Party of Five (what do you mean, you’ve never heard of Party of Five?). Loosely branded as collegiate folk or dream-pop. Recorded with Joni, John Hiatt and Natalie Merchant. Released consistently since the turn of the century until 2010s My Room In The Trees. Karen released a solo album, Violet, in 2012; Don has several solo efforts to his name.

They are the best band you’ve never heard.

The Innocence Mission play music that is both easy but infuriatingly hard to describe. If you want easy (read:lazy), it’s folk; words like pastoral, autumnal and elegiac are considered de rigueur. Karen’s voice is ‘elfin’, ‘breathy’. In truth, The Innocence Mission are all those things and so much more as to be embarrassing for any writer wishing to articulate their particular brand of melodic salve without falling into cliche.

They write songs from primary evidence, often of subjects that dive deep into the beige mundanity of life; how the weather was that morning, perhaps, the colour of trees on a Winter walk. Dreams are wrapped in slow bass progressions, the lighting difficulties of a road-trip selfie consume whole lyrics, loved ones are remembered in haunting upright piano. Songs build from simple guitar or piano lines, occasionally interrupted by relaxed snare rhythms or parsimonious organ or piercing harmonica. Verses break your heart, bridges mend it.

Each beat, each bar is carefully measured and considered, supporting Karen’s voice through songs like a precious stone swaddled in velvet. Albums rise and fall in time with your chest when you’re sleeping. They are unafraid to splash moments of colour but on the whole they are wonderful rivers of reflective melancholy that make you glad to be alive at a time they’re making music. The Innocence Mission are comfort food, a warm house at the end of a walk in the cold, the best hand you’ve ever held.

The wait has been worth it. Tom On The Boulevard, Washington Field Trip, The Color Green, the subtle Flamenco grace notes of Barcelona. It’s all so… beautiful.

Nothing I’ve said does them justice. They are the only band I’ve ever heard that I can’t describe – they defeat my vocabulary.

Just listen.