Mumford & Sons release new album, ‘Prizefighter’
Words: Alfie Sansom
★★★☆☆
Mumford & Sons have long been maligned in certain circles as the MOR marauders of 2010s neo-folk, stomping, clapping and heying their way to mass appeal at the expense of authenticity. They were never the worst offenders, but that was the detractors’ argument exactly: they were never anything, neither end of interesting. Marcus Mumford and the others likely don’t care, hugging their Grammys, Brits and Ivor Novellos as they sleep on their faux haystacks.
How can you claim the warmth and wonder of your trademark twee when your core instrument, the folkiest part of your sound, is played by the son of GB News co- owner and The Spectator owner Sir Paul Marshall? You can’t, and so the banjo was eschewed for electric guitar. It was like Dylan at Newport for fans of flannel shirts and Chelsea boots. Soon, they were rid of the banjo player too, not before plunging fully into the pop mires with Delta. Seven years later, they returned to a folkier sound with ‘RUSHMERE’, named after a pond in Wimbledon Common where the band members became friends. Back to square one, some might say, toeing the broken white line.
That’s exactly where ‘Prizefighter’ lands. Mumford and Sons have never been shy of collaborating: their song ‘Home’ was covered by Idris Elba, who co-directed and starred in the music video for ‘Lover Of The Light’; one of their most interesting projects came when they toured South Africa, working with South African, Senegalese and Malawian artists to produce the Johannesburg EP. However, the sheer number of collaborations and writing credits on this LP – the most for any Mumford album – feels like it dilutes their already quaint-by-number sound.
The album starts with a one-two, left-right of Chris Stapleton on ‘Here’ and Hozier on ‘Rubber Band Man’. Lyrically, the concept of ‘Here’ is quite interesting, but Stapleton adds nothing of note, nor does Hozier – well, except a few million more streams by association. The Gigi Perez feature on ‘Icarus’ turns the song into a less memorable ‘Broken Strings’, while Abrams’ turn on ‘Badlands’ sounds closer to her own material than a Mumford album cut.
What is Mumford and Sons anymore? Listen to this album for a whole day and try to hum one of the instrumentals, or even a chorus. Mumford seems to have forgotten his Sons, fronting the band like a West London Adam Levine. Tracks like ‘Begin Again’ suggest some oomph still left in their well, but the floundering ‘Alleycat’, with finger-plucking far too similar to my morning alarm, soon dissuades that notion.
‘Prizefighter’ is an uppercut with a foam finger, a plastic lighter on its last legs. Not even the Justin Vernon-penned title track, with its echoes of ‘The Calling’, can raise the LP to greater heights. Mumford and Sons need to innovate, to dare something more than Top 40 folk. Is that too much to ask for a band who won Album of the Year at the Grammys?