ALBUM REVIEW: Don’t Take Forever – The Maple State
On Don’t Take Forever, THE MAPLE STATE display what can be found in reconciliation. Coming back together as the band’s original lineup after disbanding in 2008, this album was 17 years in the making. Musing on loss, friendship, and passing time, Don’t Take Forever is exactly what you’d expect from an album that was brought from such an experience.
The album meets THE MAPLE STATE where they left off, with their staple indie and emo sound charging through from the offset. On Zero Days Since Last Incident jangling guitar riffs swing out and punctuate the track’s reflections on a mental health crisis. This is a format that a lot of the tracks take, and comes to define the whole album, posing emotional reflections with a strict sense of their sound as a band.
Vulnerable and open, THE MAPLE STATE are keen to explore the passing of time that they have experienced since their last venture as a quartet. This finds urgency and nostalgia at play constantly, and on Better Than Before the collective voice of the band shines out through the various harmonies. The track builds momentum as the piano and guitar lines pick up and it feels like a cathartic reclamation of their sound and the time lost. This leads into No Time To Waste, an upbeat, fun, and sincere track that affirms that their time apart will no longer be time lost.
The issue that THE MAPLE STATE face is that the tracks get lost amongst themselves. For each track that stands out, there are a handful that submerge themselves in repetitive melodies that find the album veering off into stagnation. Tracks such as Settle Down and There’s Always Money In The Banana Stand have some intriguing guitar patterns and piano melodies amidst them, but ultimately become lost and miss the mark when falling into a pattern of delivering what it seems like a song by THE MAPLE STATE should sound like.
This feeling is increased tenfold when a track like Willow appears. As the band explores the idea of starting fresh, the track is largely acoustic and takes a large influence from folk songwriting. Lyrically positioning a narrative that traces throughout the track, the song pushes their sound in a new direction, but also finds a way to merge their lyricism with this in a compelling way. Willow is a hidden gem amongst Don’t Take Forever.
Ultimately, Don’t Take Forever does what it sets out to, it finds THE MAPLE STATE reunited and examining what it means to be releasing an album that has taken 17 years to come to fruition. Its ruminations on the passing of time and its various offshoots into loss, connection, and friendship are at its core, and THE MAPLE STATE take no time to fall back into their sound. This does however feel like a comfort blanket for them, and, ultimately, you can’t help but wonder what might have happened if they didn’t play it quite as safe.
Rating: 5/10
Don’t Take Forever is out now via self release.
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