Artist: Mumford & Sons

In light of the Mumford & Sons playing their single, "The Cave" live at this past Sunday's Grammy's, I thought it would be fitting to do a artist profile on them. Mumford & Sons hail from England and blew up in the folk scene with their debut album Sigh No More in 2009. The guys came together in 2007 and the four members quickly became the talk of the music scene.

The folk group is generating people's interest in similar bands and have really helped "modernized" folk music. I know I for one never had an interest in this genre, until I first heard Iron & Wine and Mumford & Sons. What is really cool about these guys is each is able to play multiple instruments and during live shows they are known to switch around, showing off their abilities. Mumford & Sons also have a ton of raw, live energy, which if you caught their performance on the Grammy's, they certainly oozed that.

The musical instruments that they implement in their songs are guitars, mandolins, banjos, accordion, drums, keyboards, and string bass. Quite a collection of sounds that come together well.  Sigh No More exploded in England when it was released in October of 2009. The US release would follow in February 2010 and to date has sold almost a million copies in the states. They have a nice collection of songs for a debut album, and people really tend to enjoy their performances.

One thing that has bothered me with Sigh No More however, is music critics opinion on it. The reason why I chose not to review albums on my site is because everybody is different in some way when it comes to musical taste. The audiences clearly embrace Mumford & Sons and their music. At least half of critics, if not more, show hate towards this album. I've read some points on other sites, and they are really over critical. Not trying to call anyone out, but I have to with Pitchfork. They have been a go-to-source for indie stuff, but they gave the album a 2.1 out of 10. Really? This album is a fail compared to all the other shit out there? No, disagree. Yes, Mumford & Sons do have room for improvement, almost every artist does, especially since it was their debut and they only been together since 2007. I'm not here to get into the details about Pitchfork's review, so you can read that here.

The Mumford & Sons are only going to improve with time and continue to make fun, energetic folk songs. For those of you who are not folk music fans or haven't listened to them before, at least give it a chance. You may be surprised how much you'll enjoy it. If you do enjoy them, pickup the album and catch them live, if you can that is since they tend to sell-out venues.

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Posted in: Artist,Folk,Indie