Innocents Abroad has released their third album Late Spring– their first record in 37 years.

The project dropped back in March through Stormfield Records, and was recorded in Berlin. The band is now based in Carndonagh, and derives inspiration from groups like R.E.M., 10,000 Maniacs and Husker Dü. They formed in Liverpool around 1985, with original members Martin Malone, Stuart Hilton and Peter Mills. They dropped their first album Quaker City in 1985 and Eleven in 1988 before going their separate ways.

“We didn’t speak to one another for thirty years because bands, especially your best shot bands, don’t work out the way you’d hoped, it’s quite like the end of a marriage,” Malone told Derry Now. “We didn’t fall out, but we just didn’t speak to anyone. I was obsessed by the fact that the second album didn’t sound how I’d heard it in my head.”

After the release of their second album, Malone had plans to move to the Middle East for a year, while Mills was completing his PhD and Hilton was going to the Royal College of Art.

“We all had different things to do,” he added. “We were young men.”

A few years back, Mills reached out to Malone. The two had formerly been writing partners, and picked up right where they left off.

“Pete came up to my house in Scotland at the time and we said, for the craic, why not make the album we wanted to make in the 80's and things spun out from there,” said Malone. “We consciously sat in a room to see if we could write songs again and we came out of the session with two or three ideas that I’d developed. Once I’d recorded them in my home studio we thought, ‘Yeah, we’re on to something here.’”

Late Spring was produced by Victor Hilderbrand at Knochenland Studios in 2024, and sees the introduction of new bassist Jane Breen. The album is available on streaming services, limited edition 12" 180gm heavyweight vinyl and CD.

See the tracklisting for Late Spring below:

1. King Of Luxembourg
2. Parramatta Eel
3. Patience Blackburn
4. Pelham 1-2-3
5. Dandelion Clock
6. The Largs Hum
7. Cave Canem
8. Apricot
9. Astrud's House
10. Door Into Summer