Manchester band of brothers THE MAPLE STATE are today delighted to release their new album, Don’t Take Forever, which is out now on digital service providers and available to purchase on limited edition 12” vinyl.

Purchase here: https://themaplestate.bandcamp.com/album/dont-take-forever

To celebrate, the band are sharing album focus track ‘Better Than Before’ today. With a gentle and meandering Beatles-esque opening that shows a reflective and tentative side to the band, by the end the song kicks into a half-time break down with a wild synth solo, like something from the first album by The Anniversary.

Commenting on the track, front man Greg Counsell says: “Really it captures everything about the experience of making the album and coming back together as friends and then as a band. Now we’re back in the rehearsal room together and it’s like no time has passed, but when John and I first started demoing ideas for this album back in 2021, it was a tentative thing and we didn’t know where it would end up. The album, and this song in particular, is a journey. It sounds cliche and trite, but there’s no other way to describe it—the song reflects where we’re at as a band and as people, and by the end when we sing ‘we’ll all be together forever more’, it’s just a moment of pure celebration of friendship and brotherhood and 20 years of something that changed and continues to change our lives.”

Musically it’s a moment on the album where each member of the band gets to share the limelight—”the interplay between Christian’s guitars and William’s keys, both on the gentle intro and the mad outro is so clean and satisfying,” says Counsell, “and John’s drumming towards the end of the song just blows me away. He is such a compositional drummer, every beat is in service of the journey.”

Written on acoustic guitar one morning before work, Counsell describes how his initial vague idea was taken to a new level by the rest of the band, saying “I feel so lucky as a songwriter to have these musicians around me and elevate everything I write.”

“I was just coming out of a relationship and the original lyrics were all tied up with that, but when I went to (producer) Drew’s studio to put down a quick demo he just seemed really flat. When I probed he just said ‘you’ve sung about this stuff before, it’s time to move on’—it was classically Drew in his directness, but he was right. A few days later John came over and we started to put the drums down and then I immediately knew what the song was about, so I went into the next room and rewrote all the lyrics.”

The first body of new material from the band since their second album The Things I Heard At The Party in 2018, new album Don’t Take Forever is the first release from the recently-reunited original line up in two decades.

The Maple State announced their return earlier this year with surprise new single ‘Zero Days Since Last Incident’ to a flurry of underground tastemaker excitement, following up with the album’s lead single ‘Settle Down’ in summer 2025, and ‘No Time To Waste’ this autumn.

The band played a rare and triumphant hometown show on 24th October at Aatma, Manchester to give loyal fans a sneak peak of the new album material ahead of release.

“I’m still amazed whenever we play—there’s always this moment when the doors open and I think “is anyone even going to show up?”,” says Counsell of the experience, modestly. “Even though we’d sold a bunch of tickets I always think it’s mad that people would spend their Friday night watching our band all these years later. We were a bit unsure about playing another Manchester show so soon after our anniversary show in the summer, but turns out we had nothing to worry about, the place was packed out and vibe was incredible. It’s one thing having a room full of people having a massive shared nostalgia trip on a hot summer evening, it’s another thing altogether having people come out on a rainy October night to hear us a bunch of new songs from an album that wasn’t even out yet.”

“It feels like I’m gushing, but I just can’t believe that we still get to do this after all these years, and seeing the reaction to the new songs was amazing. It’s so hard to gauge anything online, people react and comment on stuff, but I miss seeing real people react to something—seeing a few people singing choruses to the new songs that haven’t been out for long, it’s just really affirming. Creating an album remotely and then engaging with an audience virtually, you can really question what sort of effect you’re even having, so this meant a lot to me. Obviously with us all living in different countries it’s hard to find opportunities to play live, but now that we’re back, I just can’t wait to get out and play for people again as soon as possible.”

The band will announce further live dates in due course.

Image provided by Liam Higgins @liamiggins via Alcopop Records