Not one of those coasting-on-a-few-singles from the ‘70s kind of bands, but a band that is allowed the time to grow into itself, or to become, as the writer Robert Farrar Capon says, “secure in the knowledge that they have at last become considerable.”

“Elevator Boots,” the first single from the Counting Crows upcoming album Butter Miracle Suite One, is the culmination of what Adam Duritz and the band have been doing their last few albums. The track’s opening guitar and piano sound bleed the influence of artists the Crows have loved—artists like Pure Prairie League, Gram Parsons, and The Byrds (all covered on Underwater Sunshine)—but the songwriting is pure Duritz.

Immediately conjuring storytelling like “Palisades Park” (off the band’s Somewhere Under Wonderland record), Duritz builds the world of a young artist dreaming of fame and then looking back at what it cost. And while the Crows have matured as a band (and Duritz as a songwriter), some things don’t change. When “Mr. Jones” appeared in 1993, they sang “When everybody loves you, you can never be lonely;” on “Elevator Boots,” it’s “Everybody wants to know you when you’re the only one to know.” This is the back side of fame. What’s it like to chase the high of being the most famous person on the planet when you’re not that person anymore?

The Counting Crows know because they’ve lived it. Indeed, they have become considerable.