English folk outfit
Mumford & Sons' full-length debut owes more than a cursory nod to bands like the
Waterboys, the
Pogues, and the
Men They Couldn't Hang. The group's heady blend of biblical imagery, pastoral introspection, and raucous, pub-soaked heartache may be earnest to a fault, but when the wildly imperfect
Sigh No More is firing on all cylinders, as is the case with stand-out cuts like
"The Cave," "Winter Winds," and
"Little Lion Man," it's hard not to get swept up in the rapture. Like their London underground folk scene contemporaries
Noah & the Whale,
Johnny Flynn, and
Laura Marling,
Mumford & Sons' take on British folk is far from traditional. There's a deep vein of 21st century Americana that runs through the album, suggesting a healthy diet of
Fleet Foxes,
Arcade Fire,
Sufjan Stevens,
Blitzen Trapper, and
Marah. That melding of styles, along with some solid knob-twiddling from
Arcade Fire/
Coldplay producer
Markus Dravs, helps to keep the record from completely sinking into the quicksand of its myriad slow numbers -- tracks like
"I Gave You All," "Thistle & Weeds," and
"After the Storm" are pretty and plain enough, but they neuter a band this spirited.
Sigh No More is an impressive debut, but one that impresses more for its promise for the future than its wildly inconsistent place in the present. [A Deluxe Edition of
Sigh No More was released in December 2010, and featured the original album, a second disc of 12 live recordings, and a DVD that included all three installments of the documentary "Gentlemen of the Road."] ~ James Christopher Monger