Five years ago, Mumford & Sons established themselves as a folk force of nature, exerting from their music an exuberant zest for life, filled with great expectations and an insatiable desire to live by dearly-held principles. The first song on their debut album Sigh No More began with the words “Serve God, love me and mend,” which seemed to inaugurate a three-fold mission statement. In song after song, a yearning to fulfill a higher purpose (“Awake my soul, awake my soul / For you were made to meet your maker”), to love with reckless abandon (“So tell me now, where was my fault / In loving you with my whole heart”), and to reform old habits (“And I’ll find strength in pain / And I will change my ways / I’ll know my name as it’s called again”) is starkly present.
The lyrics were driven home by instrumentation that slowly built from softly strummed intros to urgent, propulsive crescendos that often veered into wild and raw territory, an urgency that gained the band hordes of fans, huge album sales and sold-out shows, but also detractors who found it to be blustery, over-the-top melodrama, produced by bashing away on folk instruments ill-suited for the purpose.
Perhaps for fear of being branded as an idealistic, over-loud folk band, Mumford & Sons decided to take a remarkably drastic departure with their third album Wilder Mind (released May 4). The essence of this transformation is captured in the opening track’s chorus: “No flame burns forever.”
The album’s overarching theme seems to be that of lost passions and doubts about love, a serious shift from the wide-eyed hope and innocent, youthful energy that permeated Sigh No More and their second album Babel. In contrast, four of Wilder Mind’s first five songs explore the waning moments of relationships that seem destined to crumble. In “Believe,” lead singer Marcus Mumford sounds fatigued while delivering lines like “Your world’s not all it seems / So tired of misconceiving / What else this could’ve been.” Elsewhere, in the title track “Wilder Mind,” he wonders somberly “But I thought we believed in an endless love.”
Equally remarkable is the seismic change in the sound Mumford & Sons employs on Wilder Mind. The band chose to jettison their banjos and stand-up basses for electric guitars and a drum set, and the result mostly sounds like a completely different group. Songs like “Wilder Mind” and “Snake Eyes” sound oddly similar to Coldplay or The National. The irony here is that by plugging in, Mumford & Sons got more subdued. A large swath of the album (tracks 4-6, 8, 9 and 12) are mid-tempo songs that tend to plod along without much momentum. This will be quite jarring for Mumford fans who were expecting a more rock ’n roll version of the band in light of their switch to the conventional instruments of the trade. Wilder Mind can indeed be a bit of a puzzling listen; instead of being a showcase for the band’s plugged-in sound, the album comes off as if the lads are trying to find their footing with unfamiliar tools. The effect of this leaves the listener often trying to discern what other band the songs on Wilder Mind sound like rather than creating a newly developed manifestation of Mumford & Sons.
That being said, Wilder Mind isn’t without the passionate chorus hooks and moments of reaching heavenward that made the band’s previous albums so compelling. “Ditmas” is a driving anthem that harkens back to the folk beats of Mumford’s earlier hits. “Only Love” is a slow-building burner that features an inspiring chorus hook. “The Wolf” is a pleading desire for love, with the band in full rock-out mode as a way to punctuate the ache.
In the end, however, Wilder Mind is bound to leave most fans of Mumford & Sons’ folk-based sound and faith-filled vitality disappointed. As one fan recently stated on the band’s website: “I miss the power the previous albums had… The music you wrote before had hope, hope for a better state of being, hope for love, and I feel that your hope has died with this album.” While this last sentiment may be a bit exaggerated, it’s not hard to see where it’s coming from. Rarely has a band transformed themselves so radically in such a short time. It may prove to be a lesson learned the hard way: changing for the sake of change isn’t worth losing one’s identity.
