Written by Chris Osifchin
When we heard Mumford & Sons would be ditching the banjos and releasing an album with electric guitars, I think the musical literati simultaneously shouted and sighed. This is new territory for Mumford & Sons, at least in terms of the types of sounds available to them, but the instruments are the same more or less. What would they do with it? Well, as it turns out, not much. Wilder Mind is a heartbreakingly mediocre album from a band that had been consistently trending upward.
It’s puzzling to think what went wrong for Mumford. Like the lyrics from the single “Believe,” I don’t even know if I wanna. It’s as if they lost all sense of dynamics when they switched to instruments that can roar even louder than their dangerously catchy combination of acoustics, banjos and kick drum. The signature Mumford and Sons build-ups are missing, or something is missing from them, throughout the entire album. The tempo is fairly flat throughout most of the album. It’s repetitive to the point that it becomes a bore.
There’s an occasional hint at something better. “Monster,” a slower tune, is Mumford’s best lyrical effort on the album. It’s a dark, brooding ballad that tells the tale of a man sworn to protect his love, but having trouble upholding his chivalrous code because she doesn’t love him. A line toward the end of the song sums up what Mumford & Sons should be thinking about after this release: “None of this counts, a few dreams, plowed up.”
Another trace of the band’s former brilliance can be found on “Cold Hands.” A simple rocker with a classic chord progression, Marcus Mumford goes into a lower register to spin a soft ballad about losing a lover. This is as close as Wilder Mind gets to previous iterations of Mumford & Sons, though it’s the sparsest arrangement on the album.
There’s just not enough power behind this album. It’s too generic. It’s too long for what it is. Marcus Mumford, known for crafty lyricism, traded in his bardship for the common tongue. You’ll hear the singles on the radio, for sure, but we all know popularity doesn’t equal quality. If this was the band’s first studio album, I imagine it would have some serious trouble attracting any attention at all.
Memory can be a fickle thing. I’d hate to pull a Roger Clemens and say I’m misremembering, but I think Mumford & Sons is a better band than this effort shows. To say Wilder Mind is a disappointment is an understatement.
Wilder Mind Rating: 4/10
Click here to purchase ‘Wilder Mind’ by Mumford & Sons on iTunes
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