HP Lovecraft’s 1928 short story The Call of Cthulhu concludes with cultists dancing and singing together in a hideous attempt to summon forces beyond the limits of human comprehension. That scene was restaged at the Phoenix Park in Dublin in July 2013 when Mumford & Sons were joined on stage by their American soundalikes, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, for a cover of Steve Earle’s Galway Girl – a performance which, as it reached full pitch, threatened to open a rift in space-time and bring unspeakable monstrosities slithering forth.
In addition to leaving deep psychological scars among attendees (my phobia of waistcoats lasted for months), that show represented the high mark of the early 2010s “boom stomp clap” movement and its chilling alliance of vintage fashion, faux-Christian preachiness and the belief that, when it came to it, a rollicking banjo solo had the power to save the world.
It couldn’t continue this way. Had it done so, Mumford & Sons might well have summoned Cthulhu, who would have come screaming forth wearing a flat cap and playing the washboard. In the end, even Mumford & Sons seemed fed up with Mumford & Sons – a hollowed-out overnight success story that rumbled on for years.
Aptly for a band that has warbled at length about the joys of wandering and roving, they’ve spent the intervening period in the wilderness, though some in the group have been condemned to the badlands more than others. Still stumbling through the desert is Winston Marshall, a founding member of the line-up (and son of hedge-fund zillionaire and GB News founder Paul Marshall) who exited amid criticism of the libertarian views he had started to express on social media. Slimmed to a trio, the rump Mumfords have gone on to dabble in non-ironic heavy rock with Delta (they wore leather jackets in the photoshoots) and took a more stripped-down approach on 2024’s Rushmore.
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But now, 13 years unlucky since they almost brought about the end of the world by accident at the Phoenix Park, Marcus Mumford and his bandmates have gone back to the hoedown mother lode with a well-intentioned yet ultimately fizz-free sixth LP, Prizefighter. There’s a song called Banjo, which would be like U2 releasing a track called Bono, whilst a grim inevitability hangs over the joining of forces between the group and their longhair acolyte from rural Wicklow, Hozier.
That tune is Rubber Band Man, and, on first impression, it lands like the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of upper-middle-class boom-stomp-clap preacher dudes with interesting beards. But rather than bringing out the worst in each other, this alliance of banjo bros takes flight to heartfelt effect. Hozier goes above and beyond with a beautifully sweet and nuanced vocal. Marcus Mumford, for his part, sounds as if he fancies a cry. Vulnerability – as opposed to twee insincerity – is a hard quality to convey in music, but here Hozier and his homeboys are letting it all out, and it works.
Sadly, it is one of just a few moments where the record rouses itself above Mumford & Sons karaoke. The other high point is Badlands, a collaboration with US singer Gracie Abrams that twinkles tenderly. Elsewhere, the project feels adrift: Mumford & Sons aren’t quite sure where they want to go, only that they wish to reconnect with the musicians they were a decade ago, when life was simpler and their former banjo player wasn’t making podcasts about Jordan Peterson.
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Since emerging from what was at the time dubbed the nu-folk scene, the group has weathered all sorts of flak. Some of it is justified, but a lot of it has been unfair and insensitive to Marcus Mumford’s genuine struggles. He is a survivor of childhood trauma – which he chronicles in his almost-too-stark 2020 solo LP (a laceratingly candid project, to be listened to once and never again) – and nowadays busies himself with poetry workshops in prisons. So he does come across as a genuinely decent sort and rippling through Prizefighter is an honest desire to connect with the listener.
Alas, times have changed, we have all moved on, and this album has an unfortunate habit of dancing around the cold pyre of the band Mumford & Sons used to be, haunted by that past and reluctant to push forward. It swings and sweats, but despite all the hard work, Prizefighter does not always land its punches.
