Some genres of music are well past their sell-by date in terms of the younger generation. Opera, jazz and Billy Rae Cyrus are so seldom on teenager’s iPods anymore that they might as well not exist.
Folk was one of these genres until Mumford & Sons burst onto the scene in 2009 with their debut album, Sigh No More. This was an album that mashed together folk, rock, country & western and a brass band into a magnificent cacophony of sounds that lifted the spirit, raised the hairs and grabbed the interest of people all across the UK and beyond. It crossed genres. It sold extremely well. It won, and was nominated for, so many awards that it would be boring to list them all here.
A tough act to follow, then.
So, Babel. An album which had to deliver, to prove that Mumford & Sons are not just a one-album-wonder. And did it?
Well… I think it did.
Those of you expecting the ferocity of Sigh No More will probably be a bit disappointed. On the flipside, those of you who thought that it was a bit too powerful for your liking will surely be overjoyed, because what we have here is a slower, more melodic offering that doesn’t so much smash your ears into your skull as give you one of those massages where it’s soft and gentle and then there’s a bit where they snap your arm off.
A weird metaphor, but it works.
Babel starts off much the same as Sigh No More, with an upbeat, uplifting melody and crashing percussion forming the title track. From there, you are taken on a musical journey, ranging from the slow, beautifully measured Ghosts That We Knew and Below My Feet, to the crashing intensity of I Will Wait, Hopeless Wanderer and Broken Crown. If you buy the deluxe version, there’s even a cover of the Simon and Garfunkel classic The Boxer. Sure, there are a couple of tracks which seem rather like they’re there to fill in otherwise empty spaces (thinking specifically of Lover’s Eyes and Reminder), but as a whole, the album really works. In many ways, it feels rather like Sigh No More version 2- in fact, Mumford & Sons wrote several of the songs on Babel during/just after the production of their first album, and even borrowed aspects of songs previously released on EPs. And yet they are so totally different, with totally differing moods and tempos.
As much as I would like to leave it at that and say that Babel is a brilliant album, alas, there is one problem, one fly in the ointment. And it concerns the feel of the album. Sigh No More sounded and felt like Mumford & Sons made it in a dusty hall, with boards on the windows and agricultural machinery left abandoned on the floor. There was a roughness to it that made your inner caveman grin like a monkey on meth. On the contrary, Babel feels like the band recorded it sitting in armchairs, wearing slippers and fluffy dressing gowns. It feels studio-made. It doesn’t feel the same. It doesn’t feel like Mumford & Sons. Where’s the anger, the raggedness, the sheer volume?
That said, it’s nice to hear that slower, more emotional side of the group, to perhaps gain more of an insight of the writers. It’s a weirdly contrasting set of opinions to have, and even weirder to try and write a review around. Pity me.
If you put Babel and Sigh No More together, it’d be one amazing album. As standalones, too, both Mumford & Son’s works can hold their own. But don’t go listening to the latter with expectations of getting more of the former. There’s less energy, less anger and volume, yet more emotion, more melancholy melody.
Babel is not the same as Sigh No More. But that’s not to say it isn’t good.
