Mumford and Sons have spent their almost 20-year career puzzling out a big question: to stomp or not to stomp? The banjo-banging modern folk they came up with on their 2009 breakthrough Sigh No More and its 2012 follow-up Babel didn’t just make the U.K. band unlikely stars, it changed the pop music mainstream. Their rustic aesthetic heralded an acoustic music boom that included acts like Ed Sheeran, Noah Kahan, and Zach Bryan, and their sound crept into the rhythms of pop. Like any band with a signature style that starts to feel overly exposed, they’ve wandered a little musically, usually into more sonically refined territory on LPs like 2015’s Wider Mind and 2018’s densely packed Delta. Last year, they were back with Rushmere, their first new record in eight years, which hit a nice balance of stomp and not-too-stomp. Their latest, Prizefighter, keeps rolling in the same direction, with an emphasis on vulnerability and help from A-list friends.
With the always-empathetic Aaron Dessner producing, the band hits an artisanally wrought balance of big-hug anthems and gentler folk moments. Many of the best songs on Prizefighter get a hand from other artists, which are sprinkled plentifully throughout the album. It opens with two sweeping songs with big-name cameos. “Here” sees main man Marcus Mumford duet with Chis Stapleton on a country-soul catalog of rough regrets and faint hopes. Hozier is on board for “Rubber Band Man,” co-written with Brandi Carlile, a finger-picked folk tune that lifts off into a barrel-chested romantic benediction. The most subtle of these might be the most memorable, “Badlands,” a lilting duet with Gracie Abrams in which Mumford’s plaintive grumble blends nicely with the plainspoken prettiness of Abrams’ voice.
None of these bold-face guest appearances feel like window dressing, and none of them distract from the core Mumford mix of hard-strumming pump and indie-folk intimacy. “The Banjo Song” is a five-string serenade sent aloft by a big, arms-aloft group vocal, while “Begin Again” and the bluegrass-tinged Finneas co-write “Run Together” offer a tempered version of the band’s signature stomp. Elsewhere, the title track and “Alleycat” bring to mind the nuanced gentility the National or Bon Iver.
Marcus Mumford’s searching sensitivity threads the music together, whether he’s singing about the spiritual side of parenting on “Conversation With My Son (Gangsters and Angels),” staring down his flaws and demons on “Shadow of a Man,” or giving you a precise inventory of his work-in-progress self on “I’ll Tell You Everything.” The hardy, hearty Mums’ mix of good intentions and the well-chosen cast of A-list hired hands, makes for a record that’s steady, sturdy and vulnerable.
