Mumford and sons babel album list full#
You’ve either got it or you ain’t, and a wall full of gold records can’t change that. They have songs that hang and drip like honeysuckle on desert air that tread on cat-paws that roll and sway with the haunted rattle of a freight train.Īnd they underscore that what matters is not where you draw your music from, but whether you can illuminate it from the inside with your own spark. Their latest, lovely album, Algiers, is on the low-key side, but in performance they’re on peak form, with a rare lightness and vivacity. The fusion of Western and Hispanic implicit in the band’s name, taken from a town on the Mexican border, has become more intricate and exuberant with the emphasis on the touring outfit’s Mariachi horn players.
It’s true that the American West has a ready-made resonance, an aura of cinematic myth, but this alone can’t explain why moving from the Mumford album to a Calexico gig takes us not merely across an ocean and a continent, but to a different world. That market will love Babel too, no doubt, with its Olde England meets-faux-bucolic sleeve its vigorous tappy-toe tunes (they’ve gone upbeat! Hoorah!) and its robust sonic embellishments. It’s a hallmark of our time, and of our burgeoning market for those darling crafted things that are just so Me. Folk music can be bloody or beautiful, raw or fragile but in Mumford’s hands it delivers, more than anything, tasteful, nostalgic solipsism. Joss Stone did this with soul The Vaccines are doing it with New Wave rock ’n’ roll. It seems that the most successful new British acts of any genre are so often those who offer the form of the thing without the spirit of it. There is a trend here, and it extends far beyond a folk revival that has given us both big-selling West London pallor (Mumford, Noah & The Whale, Laura Marling) and cultishly treasured Scots vitality (King Creosote, Withered Hand). Sigh No More, to me, is like jogging on the spot for 50 minutes, while men in waistcoats whine and strum in my ear.Įmpty Smiles: Mumford & Sons have all the notes, but not the conviction (Left to right: Marcus Mumford, Ted Dwane, Ben Lovett and Country Winston) Thus with folk-rock band Mumford & Sons, although the millions who bought their first album, Sigh No More, would surely disagree.Įither those listeners find in its strenuous, earnest insipidity a thrill that eludes me, or their requirement for a favourite album is quite different from mine, which is to be transported, one way or another. If your life has taken you from, say, nursery to private school, to Classics degree, to messing about with guitars, the results are liable to seem, well.
It’s not that such individuals are lacking in talent, it’s that their collective dominance has a deadening effect on the prevailing culture. Which is why the annexing of British pop by the well-to-do matters. Or at least, to those who would treat pop as a serious business. It’s very much a ‘if it ain’t broke’ album and, for now, that’s okay.The need for a personal hinterland, as Denis Healey memorably put it, applies not only to politicians but to pop musicians. While ‘Babel’ is not going to change the face of music as we know it, it will be lapped up by Mumford fans. Lyrics seem to have been picked for their audience-participation potential, with loads more God references poking through, reaffirming their Christian roots, but they show off Marcus’ voice, unmistakably recognisable and as strong as ever, verging on ‘Ace Of Spades’ shoutiness in ‘Broken Crown’. However, this mostly drum-less band should have left out the ridiculously over-produced percussion.
Throughout, trumpet and strings, along with some nice harmonies showcased to the max on ‘Lovers’ Eyes’, flesh out the album, pushing songs from average to anthem. Only ‘Below My Feet’ dips a toe in a new direction with a glam bridge, more U2 than T-Rex, before jumping back on the folk path again. There’s not much depth, but there are some good tunes, from the sing-a-long-chorus of ‘Whispers In The Dark’, ‘I Will Wait’ and ‘Lover Of The Light’ to the gentle opening of ‘Hopeless Wanderer’, cascading into yet another Mumford-style belter. It’s not a departure from ‘Sigh No More’, with the opening title track especially sounding like it could have come from either. There’s no denying that second album ‘Babel’ is a rip-roaring record packed with earworm hooks, raucous banjo, a gravelly Marcus and an obligatory swear word. Mumford And Sons have split the masses with their blend of pop folk loved by kiddies and musos alike.
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