Mumford & Sons will release their new album “Babel” Sept. 24.
Chloe Rambo | rawr reviews
These boys made me fall in love with the banjo all over again.
I used to cringe and change the radio station, fearing their cacophony of fiddles and banjos and whatever else was making that obnoxious banging, tinny racket. Mumford & Sons used to be my most-hated band in the world, but this summer inspired an absolute epiphany — making them one of my most favorite and treasured bands.
The band formed in 2007 and released a small EP to circulate throughout the U.K. and U.S. But “Sigh No More,” their first studio album, is where the magic really happens.
Lead singer, mandolinist, guitarist and occasional drummer Marcus Mumford’s vocals keep the entire album honest. Pure honesty can be a rare gem in a treasure trove of folk albums, but “Sigh No More” is overflowing with blatant, beautiful truth.
While the songs “Little Lion Man” and “Roll Away Your Stone” both made a splash on the Billboard Top 40, they hold nothing to the climactic “Dustbowl Dance.” It’s transformative. It’s the most delicate song of murder, an element of both soft and harsh thrown together to find which survives longer. It’s the sight of blue sky after a dull Idaho winter.
Mumford & Sons are able to tell sorrowful, dramatic stories as well as — if not better than — the White Stripes on “Get Behind Me Satan”, yet make you really feel something. This is in no way an album you can passively listen to while doing homework. I find myself invested in it, hanging on each and every word, following the jumping mandolin and absorbing the steady pulses of each stanza.
Another song from the album, “After the Storm,” is a song that has a distinctly worship-like feeling. It has a mellow adoration of the broken heart and praise of a dismissed love. The song not only illustrates, but builds brick-by-brick the tangible barrier between the life of the loved and the desperation of the lonely — putting that feeling into words is near impossible. It would be much better to write said feeling within heartbeats and heartaches than words.
This album is somewhat of a blessed time bomb. It will only give itself to you when you’re ready, keeping it’s meanings and dynamic creations tucked away until due time. Mumford & Sons will release their new album, “Babel”, coming out Sept. 24. Get mentally prepared, you know I am.