Finally, a Reason to Listen to the Radio

Artist: Mumford & Sons
Album: Sigh No More
Label: Glassnote
Release Date: February 12, 2010
Website: http://www.mumfordandsons.com/

Stand Out Tracks: Winter Winds, Roll Away Your Stone, Awake My Soul, Dust Bowl Dance, White Blank Page

I grew up in a small town that only got three radio stations: an oldies station, a classic rock station, and a soft rock station. As such I never had much interest in radio. But having moved to a place with a much broader selection on the dial, I'm surprised to find I still have very little interest in radio. Even being within listening distance of four different college radio stations, I still find myself constantly flipping from station to station looking for something to listen to. Now originally I had assumed the lackluster musical choices I encountered on the radio were just specific to where I grew up, but this makes me wonder.

But I suppose it's this musical desert I find myself in that makes a band like Mumford & Sons even more an oasis. Amidst the Green Day and Coldplay and American Idol rejects that all seem to be getting an unreasonable amount of radio play, I one day heard Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons playing on 104.5. Now I wrote the song off at first, because while I liked it a lot, I figured it would be like most good songs on the radio. It'd be by some obscure band who wrote one song that was completely unrepresentative of their actual musical stylings. The song would be played a few times and for those who were brave enough to listen to the rest of the album they'd find themselves grossly disappointed.

But as the song continued to get radio play I found myself getting more and more curious about Mumford & Sons, until finally I downloaded the album. And much to my surprise, not only did Little Lion Man offer a nice gateway into the bands sound, but it wasn't even the best song on the album.

There's a certain old quality to Mumford & Sons' music. They seem to channel a type of folk music that dates as far back as to when the term was first defined. Something about the songs is reminiscent of the small villages and towns of a pre-industrial world. One can easily picture these being the songs sung for generations passed down from father to son, the history of a small town captured in song.

All this would be lost though were it not for the band's musicianship. The play with a confidence and furvor that seem to suggest they were put on this earth to perform these songs. Their harmonies and arrangements are executed with the precision of musicians as old as time. And it's this mastery that helps add an authenticity to the band's songs. Listening to them perform it's easy to believe that they come from a quieter time when there was nothing more to do than play for hours and days on end.

So for those of you out there who find themselves trekking the musical desert that is radio, I can tell you not to give up hope just yet. You can find an oasis out there somewhere. Mumford & Sons is just such an example.

RATING: 9.6/10