Daniel Cribb, Journalist

The Maine have produced an album that showcases six years of hard work and a band giving it their all.

"I kind of promised myself a couple of years ago that if anything big happened, it’d just take it in my stride. I’d be happy about it, but wouldn’t explode about it; just kind of keep it under wraps"

The band were never confirmed in the first place, says AJ Maddah

"When you’re younger, when you first start a band, you always think it’s going to be easy; like, you’ll record some songs, release them, get immediate triple j play, but it’s been a hard road."

"It’s hard to get any kind of press or interest when you’re an instrumental band. People don’t seem to take anything from it."

theMusic.com.au chats to Kevin Lyman and AJ Maddah

"It was a really stressful time for my family and for me, and I dealt with it quite badly at that point. I was really miserable, pretty depressed."

The ten songs on Damage, the band’s eighth studio album, have potential; they’re just not executed with the vitality one would expect from the band