Mumford & Sons released a new album yesterday. I’d been anticipating this for a few months, but admittedly with a little apprehension. The word on this album was that the band was pretty much tossing aside the traditional sound they’ve become known for in favor of something more modern. I was intrigued by this but also kind of nervous because it meant the end -- at least temporarily -- of a sound I’ve grown to love.
I first heard of Mumford & Sons not long after their first album “Sigh No More” came out. I was on a date in a coffee shop that was playing the album over the sound system, but barely loud enough to distinguish one song from the next. My date was already really into them though, and since she kept pausing our conversation to point out the songs she really liked, I made sure to mention a few times how great they were. I don’t listen to a lot of radio so that was the last I’d heard of them for a few months, at least until they showed up at the Grammy awards sharing a stage with Bob Dylan in an explosive performance that piqued my curiosity enough to get their album. It wasn’t the kind of music I normally would have sought out and the album didn’t have the same fire as the live performance had, so I was a little disappointed at first. But one day I happened to have the album on in the car as I was driving home from my parents’ house along the River Road -- a few miles’ worth of pastoral small town countryside that serves as a border between suburbs. It turned out to be the perfect soundtrack to the beautiful early spring day outside of my car windows, and after making that connection I was hooked. That album had me ignoring the rest of my music collection for months as I would play through it top to bottom, then start over and again as many times as I could. I bought into it entirely: the acoustic instrumentation, the whole 1930s well-dressed hobo look the band had crafted for live performances, and especially the intricate songwriting that went into the lyrics.
The second album, “Babel,” took forever to come out, but once it did it took me over even faster than the first one had, following a performance on SNL that left me feeling like time had slowed down. So, having found a connection with this band that I felt had such a unique emotional resonance, you can probably understand why I was a wee bit trepidatious about the reports they had abandoned their familiar sound in favor of something generically modern-rock enough to be compared to both Coldplay and U2. Now, don’t get me wrong; I love U2 and I like Coldplay well enough, but there are already enough bands out there that sound like them. I didn’t want to see Mumford & Sons lose what made them special.
Well, release day was yesterday and the moment of truth had arrived. My first plays through the new album, “Wilder Mind,” left me unsure. I liked the sound, a lot. It came across as more like a Marcus Mumford solo album, since, at least on the surface, his voice was really the only recognizable connection to their earlier work. But as I listened more, I heard the same lyrical voice in the songwriting, and the same emotion, alternatingly quiet and powerful, in the musical performances. Then I realized that it still really is a Mumford & Sons album, because the songs were what drew me to them in the first place. And the songs were still there, just with different instruments and different arrangements. Once I put that together, it was all too easy to imagine these songs being played live on acoustic string instruments by four guys in wool shirts, suspenders, and strategically distressed fedoras.
But honestly? I like the album enough that I’m okay with it the way it is. This one is going to get a lot of plays in my car this summer.
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