Updated: Sunday, 11.00am
MUMFORD AND SONS new album Wilder Mind came out this week.
Some critics have enjoyed its inoffensive pop rock, but not these people. Not these people at all:
1. Forgettable, run-of-the-mill
The AV Club were not impressed:
Rather than risk alienating the band’s adult-alternative fan following, Wilder Mind shamelessly panders to it with bland Coldplay-aping melodies driven by borrowed Snow Patrol power chords and splashed with Kings Of Leon-style heartland trad-rock.
2. Not even a banjo can save them now
Pitchfork reckons it’s a ‘rock’ record in the least interesting sense of the word:
Mumford & Sons’ only hope to stand out was lost in favor of a cheap imitation, and not even a banjo can save them now.
3. Highly lifelike automatons bent on overtaking the musical world
Popmatters had this to say:
the pseudo-rustic garb they often sport does give the impression that they are a gaggle of Urban Outfitters mannequins brought to life
4. More anodyne and generic than ever
Over at The Guardian, the hate was strong:
Having irritated a lot of people en route to becoming one of the biggest bands in the world, it would seem Mumford & Sons have finally succeeded in irritating themselves.
5. The worst qualities of Coldplay
With the band collaborating for the first time on verses instead of leaving them to Mumford, deciphering the culprit behind these vignettes of romantic turmoil is futile.
6. Contrived
And The National concurred with everyone else:
After two nearly identical albums, progress of any kind is positive – it just would have been infinitely more engaging if Mumford and his merry men had chosen to evolve in a direction that made them more distinctive, rather than less.
Brutal honesty all round, then.
