If Prizefighter, the new album by twangy balladeers Mumford and Sons, were to be compared to a real world altercation, then it can only be described as the musical equivalent of being gently tapped in the face with a banjo by a well-groomed, tweed-clad english gentleman. This isn’t “folk-rock with bite”, this is elevated elevator muzak desperately trying to masquerade as profundity.
From the opening strains of Here (a track featuring Chris Stapleton that feels less like artistic symbiosis and more like Spotify algorithm collaboration bingo) you’re hit with an overwhelming sense that Mumford & Sons have confused heartfelt introspection with an almost vomit-inducing attempt to appear earnest and passionate. Marcus Mumford’s vocals, once genuinely capable of genuine emotional charge, now tread the murky waters of “I’m here for you if you need me….but can we do it over brunch.”
It seems that Mumford and their offspring have become so deluded by this point in their career that The Banjo Song (a title so bizarrely on-the-nose it could have been generated by AI trained on folk clichés) manages to underuse its namesake instrument so dramatically that you start wondering if the banjo was accidentally sent to another studio.
Even the many collaborations (usually a way to inject diversity into a stale sound) seems to just spotlight how interchangeable the whole enterprise feels. It’s like hearing Mumford & Sons cover Mumford & Sons, but in a bigger room. It doesn’t matter how many 4/4 foot stomps, vocal harmony crescendos and doleful guitar chords you throw into a pot…if there’s no fire beneath them then they just aren’t going to cook properly. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the songwriting here…but there’s also nothing inherently right with it either. It just….exists.
By the time the final track fades, there’s an uneasy sense you’ve listened to something that wants desperately to mean something, yet settles for praising vulnerability the way a corporate retreat praises teamwork. If emotional nuance were calories, Prizefighter would be a diet of decaffeinated coffee and cucumber water.
So, it would seem that Prizefighter isn’t an album so much as a folksy apology letter, starring banjos that forgot how to banjo.
Best Paired with – A tailored handkerchief, a herbal teabag and a paternity test.
Reviewed by Bryn.
mumford and Sons – prizefighter is out now on Universal music.
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