Following the success of his previous release Sweet and Sour, Belfast based troubadour Don Maple rolls out the red carpet for his latest single ‘Never Loved You Better‘, a psychedelic sonnet dedicated to enjoying the simple things when life is determined to cut you down.
A song as much about defiance as it is about enjoyment ‘Never Loved You Better’ opens with a smoking lounge lick, employing that factor of psychedelia that sounds both retro and modern simultaneously. Don Maple’s velvety vocals, reassuring in their uneasy drawl, crawl over the smouldering carpet laid down by the guitar and drum accompaniments. An unmistakable similarity in lyrical and vocal style to Alex Turner, particularly in the ways Maple stretches the last syllable of each line impossibly beyond its mortal career like some 1950’s American bubblegum, only adds to the agile, dreamlike composition of his music, which in itself resemble the love child of Radiohead and Eels.
Not one for conformity, there is an absurd amount of music to unpack in ‘Never Loved You Better’. The surprisingly poppy hook has implications of eye contact and slow dancing in the 90s, while introspective lyrics combine with the reliable comfort of rhyming couplets to add to the depth created by the dynamic of Maples enchant for interlaced electronic effects.
Constantly grabbing your attention, remarkably deep and landed with thoughtfulness, ‘Never Loved You Better’ is a high for the Toronto born singer-songwriter and indicative of more on the horizon.
