A few weeks after this post, Mumford And Sons are likely to be littering the radio, TV and Internet with their infectious, raw, slightly heartfelt and somewhat shouty version of Modern Folk Music. This is a good thing.
In the past decade, Indie music has risen from a technicality (Indie meaning Independent, of course) to a full blown it’s-sodding-everywhere marketable genre of music. Bands such as The Fratellies have given us no-holds-barred overly-regionally-accented, hard hitting rock, with, of course, a folk twist. Mumford And Sons blow these bands completely out of the water, straight off the face of planet earth and blasts them into an infinite nothingness for one reason and one reason alone – they’re not pretending to sound like a folk band, they’re not copying other bands – they are, quite literally, what happened when a few music lovers got together with instruments ranging from a standard acoustic to a vintage Dobro and Double Bass, and wrote music for the hell of it.
What really strikes a nerve here is that in the world of elitism that modern music has created, there are few boundaries in Mumford And Son’s music – you can dance like a pillock, or enjoy it for what it is – it can be your night out, it can be your night in – it’s just good fun.
What the music doesn’t do, however, is anything particularly innovative or massively original. You won’t be blown away by the technical or deep emotive content of the music – the lyrics won’t give you a deeper outlook on life (ala Angels and Airwaves) and the technical instrumentation won’t cause you to soil yourself (ala Dream Theater,) but that doesn’t mean it’s bad by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone who’s ever seen a loud, upbeat folk band will appreciate the massive power of the Double Bass, and the simple fact that much like Modern Ska – it’s rustic, bouncy and a little bit absurd, but you can’t help but jump around and act like a complete trollop. Mumford & Sons are a band for the sake of good music, and little more – but frankly, that’s just the way we like it.