There’s a song on Mumford & Sons’ new album called The Banjo Song. If this were a band with a sense of humour, that could almost be interpreted as a joke. In spite of the intentions of rocking themselves up from 2015’s Wilder Mind, the cultural footprint of Mumford & Sons has been—and likely will always be—‘farmers with banjos’. It’s the only memorable quality they’ve ever sported, lambasted for it as much as they were lauded (maybe even more so). Perhaps, then, ‘The Banjo Song’ is so called to poke fun at their detractors’ expense, for being so narrow-minded as to not appreciate how Mumford & Sons have changed over the years. It might even elicit a satisfied little chuckle from Marcus Mumford; can you imagine?!
In truth, the public-facing persona of Mumford & Sons isn’t allowed to be even that provocative. It’s why Winston Marshall left in 2021, so that his alt-right lionising wouldn’t threaten their flavourless, benign image. And while Conservative readings of Mumford & Sons’ work seldom feel like too much of a stretch, ultimately, their brand is slap-bang in the middle of the road. Embracing rock stimuli of Coldplay, Snow Patrol and latter-day U2 was no more daring than when they twanged around dressed as stablehands. Even now when they’re back to folk, it feels like an explicit play to jump on Noah Kahan’s coattails. Are collaborations with Hozier and Gracie Abrams on here not just Kahan’s sloppy seconds?
For an album called Prizefighter with a lighter on its cover, there’s a conspicuous dearth of punch or fire. Less than a year after the tired, boring, milquetoast RUSHMERE comes its tired, boring, milquetoast follow-up, with little of the contrary to be found. This is supposed to be Mumford & Sons’ purple patch of creativity, too; apparently they’re rejuvenated here. Not that you’d ever be able to tell. Even for the limitations baked into mainstream indie-folk—in other words, you’re not getting Dylan-calibre work here—Prizefighter seldom goes any sort of distance. In production shared between the band and Aaron Dessner, it’s the colourless, rustic-but-not-really folk you might expect. Texture is out of the equation, replaced by an indie-folk palette that leaves no room for challenge.
If it is Noah Kahan’s influence that’s brought Mumford & Sons back here…well, they’re a couple of years too late to capitalise on his real peak, but even then, the sporadic heights are nowhere to be seen here. What makes a song like Dial Drunk so great is how heightened Kahan gets within it—desperate; floundering; pathetic. Marcus Mumford, meanwhile, has an exhaustive range of placid earnestness and earnest placidity. Anything approaching grit on Prizefighter is outsourced to either Chris Stapleton on Here or Gigi Perez on Icarus, both of whom mop the floor with Mumford. His own contributions are not at all noteworthy, where, if it weren’t for the void-on-legs Gracie Abrams on Badlands, his cloying pule would be the most ineffectual trait of this album.
‘Among’ them, bear in mind; it’s decidedly hard to narrow down what would take that top spot. The lack of defined edges on Prizefighter make it hard to separate any of them, thus leaving them to congeal into a vague, light-grey mass. With the one-two of Alleycat and the title track especially, you’d forget you’re listening to them if Mumford weren’t mixed to whisper directly into your eardrum. Somehow worse, the five-and-a-half minutes of undiluted syrup Conversation With My Son (Gangsters & Angels) is the most ludicrous of chores to sit through. That’s the crux of Prizefighter’s problems—it’s not intimate or workably sentimental; it’s just dull and small. Thank Christ for Begin Again and Stay then, for no other reason than to serve as blustery checkpoints reminding you to pay attention.
Amid all of that, you have an album that, on an objective metric of construction and fidelity, is fine. The money that Mumford & Sons can afford to pump in makes it so, and even if the polish and fine-tuning defeats the object of folk at its purest, pop commodification means you kinda have to turn a blind eye. The anonymity of Mumford & Sons should tell you they’re far from the only ones still doing this. Either way, Prizefighter isn’t wholly devoid of worth. A pivot into brawny Americana on Here isn’t bad, and the rollicks of Rubber Band Man and The Banjo Song are pleasant in their simple predictability. Prizefighter’s best feature by far, though, is its vocal harmonies, and the flicker of much-needed warmth they provide. They’re always tightly placed and arranged, and in the right circumstances, can make certain songs a lot more listenable on their own.
Granted, that’s an elevation up to ‘not quite dead wooden blocks’, not ‘good’. Prizefighter is too unadventurous and stuck in its ways for that, with Mumford & Sons showing no real interest in making a change. This is the lane they’re stuck in, it seems, as they make middle-brow filler that’s the most obvious silent-majority bait in the world. It’s not worth getting angry at their continued success when that accomplishes nothing. Befuddlement, sure, but for this band who sound like they’d crumple from a sharp gust of wind at this stage, letting them ride out their inertia is a kindness. Still, that doesn’t stop Prizefighter from being welterweight at very best.
For fans of: Noah Kahan, The Lumineers, Kings Of Leon
‘Prizefighter’ by Mumford & Sons is out now on Island Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
