Send "Mumford & Sons " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 That band name derives from singer/guitarist Marcus Mumford, but the band members aren't actually his sons. Rather, it's a play at quaint family businesses run by real people in real small towns, trades passed down through generations: both independent (yes, as in indie) and commercial. It's a shallow cry of authenticity, but this West London quartet really does sound more like a business than a band, supplying value-added products at discount prices. Their debut, Sigh No More, is stocked with group harmonies straight from the Fleet Foxes warehouse, exaggerated earnestness on consignment from the Avett Brothers, some of the same rock "real"-ness that built the Kings of Leon brand, second-hand drama from that run on Keane a few years ago, and some insistent Gomez rusticisms gathering dust in the back room. It's not spot-the-influence if they're pushing them on you with a salesman's insistence.Mumford & Sons take an emporium approach, with an inventory that's broad but never deep. By spreading their attention around so many different trends, they aim to do many things adequately-- perhaps to distract you from an inability to do any one thing especially well. They love big moments and acoustic instruments, so you might call what they do hoedown pop, although that might be giving them too much credit: Every hoedown on Sigh No More-- every rush of instruments in rhythmic and melodic lockstep-- conveys the same sense of hollow, self-aggrandizing drama. And they pull that shit on every track. Among the predictable crescendos, there are some unexpected textures, mostly courtesy of some guy calling himself Country Winston playing banjo and dobro. And they contain hints of Celtic melodies in songs like "Roll Away Your Stone" and "Thistle & Weeds", like they might be trying to update Fairport Convention and Pentangle. But none of these ideas is fully developed or explored, the gestures fleeting at best....full text |
| Bbc |
| London’s nu-folk scene has turfed up surprises as unlikely as they’ve been refreshing of late. First we had Laura Marling, displaying a poise and unnerving command of her material that called to mind the best of the 70s troubadour tradition. Then there was Johnny Flynn’s earthy erudition, steeped as it was in folk’s mystical lexicon. And this year Noah & The Whale reconciled their twee approach with a newly-whetted pop savvy and broader sonic palette, transforming into a major-league concern in the process. Having paid their dues the old-fashioned way as the (superb) on-off backing band for Marling in 2007/08, Sigh No More sees four-piece Mumford and Sons strike out for equally distinctive territory, carving out a mostly winning – if nigglingly naive – debut that deserves an audience to match its impressive convictions. It’s a record deploying a wealth of folk signifiers, from banjos and sighing mandolins to dubious lyrics about how the harvest left no fruit for you to eat, but which in truth shares more genes with the bombastic song progressions of Arcade Fire or even Kings of Leon’s grit ‘n’ shine indie anthemics. As such, the title-track builds into head-spinning panorama like the ones that greet photogenic tourists reaching a Highland summit in a Scottish tourist board ad – but the view’s secondary to the transcendent feeling it evokes. It’s a fist-pumping formula realised undoubtedly in part through Arcade Fire and Maccabees veteran Markus Drav’s production work, and while much of Sigh No More sounds impressively big as a result – Little Lion Man and Thistle & Weeds are especially massive – it also leaves the band open to sounding portentous when the tunes aren’t up to snuff. I Gave You All is one such howler, singer Marcus Mumford’s vocal howling its impotent rage at a bothersome ex. Hell might hath no fury like a folkie scorned, but do the results have to sound quite so much like JJ72 cast-offs?...full text |
| Guardian |
| It is quite obviously a Good Thing that the centre of gravity of young British guitar music seems to be shifting. Where 18 months ago there was a new "landfill indie" album every other week, now it's new, young British folk-pop groups offering debut albums with metronomic regularity. Mumford & Sons spring from the same agglomeration of musicians that has already bequeathed us Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale, and are by all accounts a delightfully rowdy and passionate live band. Why, then, does their album feel just a little bit too polite? Even when the songs - as they invariably do - cut loose into the hoedown section, with bluegrass banjo underpinning acoustic guitars, strings and horns, there's the sense they are holding back. Maybe that's also what causes Sigh No More to sound a little generic: though everything here is pleasing, there's no single "Wow!" moment. Still, it's a promising start, and once Marcus Mumford develops the storytelling skills of US counterparts such as the Low Anthem, there will surely be better to come....full text |
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