#1723 Mumford and Sons - Wilder Mind

I finally figured it out: Mumford and Sons are a secular Christian rock band.

Made for big, broadly relatable, euphoric climaxes - you can just picture the earnest 22 year old girls with their heads lolled back singing along to every word that was written just for them. The banjos are gone, but the format's the same: everything's a climax, or a build to a climax, or a setup for a build to a climax. There's the odd exception, but even the shimmering, simmering Monster feels like an extended setup for Snake Eyes' inevitable, slowburning eruption.

Is it so wrong to have high-low structures? And isn't the album actually rather pretty in places? It is, it is! But its that neverending catharsis, that eternal grasping - none of it reads true, it's all just too damn built to break you down.

Put it this way: if I'm gonna like an album I usually have to be able to say yes to this question:

"is this a band I'd want to be in?"

I'll pass on these guys. I don't think they're really a band. I don't think they're up there making their music or otherwise doing their thing, they're enthralled to making all the people out there feel this way and then that, and it's exhausting, and it shows 2.5/5