The much anticipated sophomore effort from folk superstars, Mumford and Sons, came out yesterday. I’ve given it a few listens and currently am underwhelmed. It’s not that the album is lacking at all; songs like ‘I Will Wait’ and ‘Ghosts That We Knew’ were great early singles, and front-runners for song of the album. I can’t fault Mumford and Sons to sticking to a formula that works, it just feels as if this secondary effort is a parallel to their debut, rather than being an improvement. The use of similar themes and same sense of grandeur and epicness don’t help to set this album apart That being said, I’ve only gone through the album twice at the time of writing this, so I’m probably being too harsh and will fall in love with this album over the next few weeks and truly enjoy all its subtleties, but for now I’m left feeling like something was lacking. There is no true ‘Little Lion Man’ on this track, although ‘I Will Wait’ does its best to live up to it. However, although there are no breakout hits, the album itself has plenty of beautiful songs. My personal favorite ‘new song’ (not a single or preplayed) has been ‘Holland Road,’ which fits perfectly in the album between the two big hitters mentioned above. ‘Holland Road’ will be overlooked by many, but in my opinion it is similar to the ‘Dustbowl Dance’ of their debut. ‘Broken Crown’ is another gem, breaching nearly on electric rock, showing the most variety this album has to offer, and giving hope to future artistic expansion for the band. Overall, the album is much of the same, leaning on the epic builds the band has become known for to create folk-anthems throughout the album, if you liked the first this is much of the same and unless you were looking for a huge improvement you definitely won’t be disappointed, check out my two favorites below and check out this album!
