Hey all! This is my first music review; my boyfriend wanted me to write one for his website, The Tune. Please tear it apart (or give it nice, constructive criticism haha), as he wants me to write more, but I don't think I'm up to speed yet. Any comments would be greatly appreciated
By now, if you haven't heard the name "Mumford & Sons," you may be living in a cave with your fingers in your ears. With only one album, they’ve hovered at the top of the U.K. charts for 72 straight weeks, as well as earning high spots in all the other predominantly English-speaking countries—you can’t turn on a radio in the U.S. without hearing “Little Lion Man” at least once nowadays. This London-based quartet has tapped into the popular masses playing catchy folk with naught but a bass drum and a tambourine as their percussion on most of their songs, still somehow urging the listener to bounce up and down or headbang while listening.
Sigh No More is deliciously rife with musical explosions that are surprising on the first few listens, and once you get used to them, you wait on the edge of your seat for them and have a braingasm when the wall hits you. In the cases of “Little Lion Man” and “Roll Away Your Stone,” two of the four singles on the album, “Country” Winston Marshall’s insane banjo playing carries these intense moments rhythmically much further than any other instrument; in calmer songs such as “White Blank Page” and “I Gave You All,” the peaks are more gradual and paced, pulling the listener through the entire song despite the slower tempo.
Although Mumford is the lead, each of the members’ voices can be distinctly heard during invigorating choruses, as they all have a unique melodic line that enriches rather than overburdens the listener with noise. This makes them able to get away with just singing an open “ahhh” on a few tracks without becoming boring, and when they go a capella, there’s nothing to do but bask in it.
Apart from the fact that they subtly lifted lines from Shakespeare and Hemingway, many of Mumford & Sons’s lyrics are simple yet so well-crafted that each song allows the listener to glean a story from them in their own minds. “Dust Bowl Dance” is one of the few on the album that doesn’t leave much room for personal imagination, but it still touches on the universal issue of unequal wealth distribution, as Mumford asks “One man has and the other has not/ How can you love what it is you have got?”
“After The Storm” is a standout track, using no percussion whatsoever, a guitar, and Marcus Mumford’s gentle vocals. It’s certainly not the only one in which love is mentioned, but it seems to be more personal, and it is perfect to listen to after a quarrel - “Love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears,” Mumford sings amongst other romantic postulations that ultimately are about humbling yourself before the harsh world and helping your partner to survive.
The title track, “Sigh No More,” also declares that “love, it will not betray you, dismay, or enslave you/ It will set you free”, but it seems to invoke love for your fellow man – it’s definitely the feel-good song on the album. The slow fade-in of Mumford’s guitar eases the listener into the music, and each instrument adds itself on seamlessly, introducing their musical style so well that no other song could have worked as the first track.
Considering none of these musicians owned their own instruments when they started recording, the aspects of their composition are simply astounding. They have managed to create music that is diverse and exciting, with simple, down-to-earth themes that don’t extrapolate or understate – the perfect recipe for our fast-paced world, when all we need is something attention-getting that makes us slow down and think a little.