Mumford & Sons get repetitive and the formula works as they deliver another energetic performance in the music video for their new single "Babel," title track and the fourth single from English indie folk rock band's sophomore album, which won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. No surprises, just more singalong anthems for fair-weather festival-goers. It's a beautiful twist on a performance video and one that captures the passion and enthusiasm frontman Marcus Mumford, pianist Ben Lovett, banjo player Winston Marshall and bassist Ted Dwane all bring to their playing.
Mumford & Sons' folk-tinged, banjo-plucking austerity indie has made them rich and successful beyond their wildest dreams. And "Babel" bowls along with the ebullient energy one expects of Mumford & Sons, like a cider-soused hoedown at an after-hours lock-in. They are the epitome of a Marmite band, vilified for their privileged background and narrow vision of folk music, celebrated for their spit'n'sawdust energy and biblical framing of love. "Babel," is more than just a decent nu-folk album, but also a great pop album, will only entrench these positions. They manage to play loudly and boisterously, without ever making the descent into cacophony.
The title-track, a mandolin stomp-thrash, opens proceedings with Mumford claiming "I ain't ever lived a year better spent in love." This seems to serve as a conceptual thread for the album as a whole, as successive songs track the turbulent progress of his heart. The title-track was named after the Genesis story about the origin of different languages. String bassist and guitarist Ted Dwayne told Rolling Stone that the song speaks about human discontent, one of the themes of the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel.
Though the title-track forcefully kicks-open the door to their Grammy-winning No.1 album, the new clip settles for an intimate and stripped-down atmosphere. Shot in San Francisco, the Sam Jones-directed black-and white clip sees the folk-rock quartet on an infinite loop, with each pouring his entire body into the music on every glimpse, performing the song in a derelict music hall, while a camera swirls around in a circle to catch them over and over again in different aspects of performance mode. Despite no audience, Mumford & Sons play with enough ferocity and stomping to tear down the metaphorical walls and sings about in the bridge of the track. It shows just how unending their cycle truly is, and well, it works on an entirely different level.
Mumford & Sons' folk-tinged, banjo-plucking austerity indie has made them rich and successful beyond their wildest dreams. And "Babel" bowls along with the ebullient energy one expects of Mumford & Sons, like a cider-soused hoedown at an after-hours lock-in. They are the epitome of a Marmite band, vilified for their privileged background and narrow vision of folk music, celebrated for their spit'n'sawdust energy and biblical framing of love. "Babel," is more than just a decent nu-folk album, but also a great pop album, will only entrench these positions. They manage to play loudly and boisterously, without ever making the descent into cacophony.
The title-track, a mandolin stomp-thrash, opens proceedings with Mumford claiming "I ain't ever lived a year better spent in love." This seems to serve as a conceptual thread for the album as a whole, as successive songs track the turbulent progress of his heart. The title-track was named after the Genesis story about the origin of different languages. String bassist and guitarist Ted Dwayne told Rolling Stone that the song speaks about human discontent, one of the themes of the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel.
Though the title-track forcefully kicks-open the door to their Grammy-winning No.1 album, the new clip settles for an intimate and stripped-down atmosphere. Shot in San Francisco, the Sam Jones-directed black-and white clip sees the folk-rock quartet on an infinite loop, with each pouring his entire body into the music on every glimpse, performing the song in a derelict music hall, while a camera swirls around in a circle to catch them over and over again in different aspects of performance mode. Despite no audience, Mumford & Sons play with enough ferocity and stomping to tear down the metaphorical walls and sings about in the bridge of the track. It shows just how unending their cycle truly is, and well, it works on an entirely different level.
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