Album Review: Sigh No More by Mumford and Sons

“So come out of your cave walking on your hands

And see the world hanging upside down

You can understand dependence

When you know the maker's land

So make your siren's call

And sing all you want

I will not hear what you have to say

Because I need freedom now

And I need to know how

To live my life as it's meant to be”

Mumford and Sons crow and punch out their song ‘The Cave’ to riveting vocals and instrumentation including banjo, mandolin, guitar, drums, and string bass. ‘The Cave’ is one of their biggest hits from their first album Sigh No More. The band and their music have been nominated for 6 Grammy Awards and have won several British and international awards. In 2010 they won Most Popular International Artist in the ARIA Music Awards, and, in 2011, won three Billboard music awards and were top British album of the year. This rootsy, folksy, rocky band has been sweeping the world off of its feet one small area at a time with their intense life of touring, having only taken one break to record and release an album since 2008.

Lead singer Marcus Mumford started his musical career as a drummer for Laura Marling, a fellow British folk artist. He soon branched off from there, and in December of 2007 started a band with his childhood friend Ben Lovett and two other young men, Country Winston and Ted Dwane. They each brought their own unique voice, instruments, and talents to the group. Together they became something altogether wonderful—a band nearly the whole world would soon fall in love with. Between them they brought to the stage the mandolin, guitar, drums, accordion, keyboard, banjo, dobro (resonator guitar), and string bass. Marcus Mumford is the main vocalist, but in most of their songs they have two-four part harmonies in the chorus and some of the verses. They first started touring in Ireland and the UK and, in 2008, produced a short EP Love Your Ground. As their number of fans grew across Europe they realized they needed to record an album. They released Sigh No More with lead title “Little Lion Man” and 9 other songs on the 5^th of October 2009. They hit #1 on the charts in Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand and #2 in the UK album chart and the US Billboard 200. Right after releasing their first album the 4 young men went on another touring storm. Only two years earlier they had been relatively nondescript musicians in West London and now they were on demand across the Western World. What makes them so good?

It’s hard to put my finger on it. All I know is when I first heard them a little over a year ago I became instantly addicted. I listened to them nearly every waking hour for weeks, I couldn’t get enough of their lyrics, their voices, their music. It was genius, it was original, it was bold and beautiful. Even now after having heard every song over a hundred times, I haven’t gotten tired of them. They’re the band I go to when all else fails. Their lyrics are raw and passionate poetry out of which new and inspiring meaning never cease to flow. Their instrumentation is beautiful and memorable, not a note or chord out of place. Their voices carry and deliver their lyrics boldly and blend well with the instruments. Mumford has a rough, smokers voice, and some criticize that negatively, but it is the perfect voice for this style of music. He sings with such feeling and his rough voice gives quality to his emotion. Out of all this the best thing that Mumford and Sons has given us is their lyrics.

The first song on the album, ‘After the Storm’s’ hope-filled words,

“And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.”

They give us a glimpse of paradise.

The conflicted love story told by, “Winter Winds”,

“As the winter winds litter London with lonely hearts
Oh the warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms
Was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night?
For every kiss your beauty trumped my doubt”

In some ways, “Winter Winds” is a regular proper love song with the heart and mind at odds as to whether to fall in love or not. But the twist is in the chorus, where, it’s the mind that wants to fall in love and the heart that says, “This time no”. This part makes me wander every time I hear it at all the possible meanings behind the words. In a later verse he connects his conflicting feelings with the inevitable death of him and the girl making the listener wander even deeper with the meaning. Is he really uncertain about the girl or is it that he is afraid of the pain of losing her? Or is it the very fact that life is short and unpredictable that he wants to fall in love with her now and make “the memories good”? Or has it something to do with God? In almost all of their songs they connect their lyrics and stories to such deep-running themes that they are no longer merely the story of a girl or a boy but become a story of the earth, of life itself.

The intense ballad in the second to last song on the album, ‘Dust Bowl Dance’,

“I've been kicked off my land at the age of sixteen

And I have no idea where else my heart could have been

I placed all my trust at the foot of this hill

And now I am sure my heart can never be still

So collect your courage and collect your horse

And pray you never feel this same kind of remorse”.

The song goes on to tell the story of a young farmer in the days of The Dust Bowl and how he is protecting his land from the government officials who would take everything away from him because the famine left him with no money. The story pounds on with spine-chilling vocals and lyrics. ‘Dust Bowl Dance’ is one of my favorite songs on the album. Many don’t like it as much as the others because its themes are much darker than most of their songs, but the power behind it, the surge of the song as it captures your mind and takes you along on this brutal story, is brilliant.

In 2010, Mumford and Sons got together with Laura Marling and a group of Rajisthani musicians who called themselves The Dharohar Project to make a charming 5-song EP called The Dharohar Project & Laura Marling & Mumford and Sons. I found the EP entertaining to say the least. It has a distinctive Indian sound, crazy vocals, and over half the lyrics aren’t in English. One reviewer said of it, “The result sounds like a pub band crashing an Indian wedding” (Sarene Leads). It is vastly different from their album ‘Sigh No More’ but for fans in love it has enough of the Mumford and Sons sound we know so well, with backgrounds of banjo and mandolin along with some folksy verses mixed in with the inidan choruses. It all makes for an enjoyable listen.

For several months now, Mumford and Sons has been working on recording their new album. They became motivated after going to the 2012 Grammy’s for the same album as in 2011. Dwayne is quoted saying, "It's a bit of deja vu, it's as much of an honor, but it's still the same record, and we're here celebrating artists with new records." And Lovett said, "When we heard, we were like, 'Wait! It's 2012. We should have a new album out now…' "(Jessica Gelt). They have been performing their new songs for several months now, driving fans mad with desire, but the only place they can be found this far is YouTube.

I think Mumford and Sons is one of the most original bands of our time, and that is why people love them so much, because their songs don’t remind you of five other songs you just heard on the radio or even of any of the songs in the 100s+ CD collection on your iPod. Each song stands on its own, and has true quality. The lyrics are creative and abstract yet overflowing with meaning, their instrumentation is varied and full of both new and familiar sounds but put together in beautiful ways, and their blend of voices add musical dimensions to each song.

Work Cited

Gelt, Jessica. "Grammy's 2012: Mumford and Sons Work the Deja Vu Angle." Los Angeles Times. Burbank Leader, Coastline Pilot, Daily Pilot, 12 Feb. 2012. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.

Mumford and Sons. Sigh No More. Perf. Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Country Winston, and Ted Dwane. Gentleman of the Road, 2010. CD.

Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling, and The Dharohar Project. Dharohar Project, Laura Marling and Mumford and sons. Perf. Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Country Winston, Ted Dwane, and Laura Marling. 2010. CD.

Leads, Sarene. "Dharohar Project, Laura Marling and Mumford and Sons." Rolling Stone. Ed. Jann S. Wenner. US Weekly, Men's Journal, 2010. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.