Stone Roses release second single, Beautiful Thing

The Stone Roses have released a second new single.

Beautiful Thing is the "Madchester" indie four-piece's follow-up to All For One, which became their first new material since 1995 on release in May this year.

The band split in 1996 and reunited in 2011 but it has taken a further five years for them to release any original material.

Their tweet that "The Stone Roses will release a new single Beautiful Thing at midnight tonight" garnered more than 2,500 retweets in just 25 minutes.

Artwork for the new single shows a green butterfly against a stark white background, forgoing the band's famous lemon logo.

It was the fruit which first alerted fans to the possibility of new music when it appeared on billboards in the band's home city of Manchester earlier this year.

Speculation had been rife that new music was due to drop this week when details of a song called "Beautiful Thing" appeared on the website of music copyright site PPL on Wednesday. It states the song will last seven minutes.

The new songs precede a summer of live music appearances for the foursome, as they will perform gigs in Manchester, New York, T In The Park and Dublin.

Stone Roses found breakthrough success with their self-titled album in 1989, followed by the appropriately titled Second Coming in 1994.

But Reni quit in 1995 and was soon followed by guitarist John Squire, leading to the formal dissolution of the band the following year.

Top hits from the band included Fools Gold, I Wanna Be Adored, She Bangs The Drums and Love Spreads.