Mumford & Sons - Delta

Mumford & Sons
Delta
2018
Spotify

2015's Wilder Mind was a needed departure for Mumford & Sons. The album saw them shift from their folksy mandolin extravaganza into more pop ready stadium alt-rock. This massive shift in style was terrible for die hard fans, but softened the band's image sliding them closer to Imagine Dragons than Arcade Fire. This album sort of corrects that course, but does not fully alter it. The band open and soften a bit on this record, returning to a more earnest honest sound, rather than something that feels like it was made to make stadiums sound good. There is far less electronics for electronics sake and even a shift to more wide open productions. "The Wild" is a gentle song filled with heartbreaking loss, but it blooms into this expansive lovely track unafraid of it's own bombast. These are the kinds of moments you want from Mumford & Sons, something that makes you feel. However these moments are not the norm on their records, and they aren't the norm here either. There are flashes of something beautiful, something really lovely, but then there is always this pull towards the middle that seems inescapable for them at this point. Even when they stretch and find a special moment the gravity is just to great leading them down a different path. "Slip Away" tries to almost do the exact same thing they did on "The Wild" and it just flat out misses. Mumford & Sons always have this push and pull between finding something new and great or trying to recapture something they've done before. One works, the other rarely does.

"The Rose of Sharon" has these brief flashes of brilliance once you allow it to unfold, but the opening feels somewhat awkward. You find yourself asking at times: "would I like this if it wasn't Mumford and Sons"? The answer is a little shaky, because on one hand yes, it probably would be easier to like this record is Mumford didn't have any baggage associated with them yet on the other so much of this record feels formulaic and pedestrian how could you ever like it? It is typically when they break from the formula that they stumble on something great. Songs like "If I Say" are so slow and boring that when it actually clicks in you just can't find yourself giving any kind of shit. The songs that just drag and drag are the worst part of this record, the manufactured scale soaring into the clouds but doing absolutely nothing with it. "Wild Heart" is a song they have made about 100 times at this point, and trying ti again just feels like banging your head against the wall. It's hard to say this album has promise, because it really doesn't. but it does have a few moments that feel pretty darn nice. Maybe that is the best we can ask for from the folk turned alt-rock back to folk-kinda band though, and maybe that's ok.

5.8 out of 10