★★★★☆
Best known for their hits “Little Lion Man” and “I Will Wait,” Mumford & Sons were the quintessential folk-rock band of the early 2010s. After straying into more pop-heavy territory with 2018’s Delta, their newest release, Rushmere, is a welcome return to form.
While the album is relatively short—only 10 tracks making up 34 minutes—it still feels complete. Over that span, Mumford & Sons take the listener through an exploration of loss and longing. While Rushmere occasionally veers into self-indulgence, its best songs manage to be both meditative and soaring.
The opening song, “Malibu,” could have easily been found on 2009’s Sigh No More. The bluegrass-inspired track embraces the band’s classic, rustic feel. Starting slow, the song swells to its final chorus.
“You are all I want / You’re all I need / I’ll find peace beneath the shadow of your wings,” sings Marcus Mumford.
The track explores finding solace in a relationship, though it proves to be a red herring despite its romantic nature.
What follows is an album much more existential than the opening track suggests, one that features Mumford no longer celebrating what he has but instead lamenting what’s missing.
The following song, “Caroline,” begins this shift toward darker themes. The song is propelled by a punchy acoustic guitar. Over a percussive riff, Mumford asks, “Will you deny our love again?”
On the album’s titular track, Mumford looks inward. “Rushmere” is an anthemic piece featuring the band’s signature banjo plucking. The track swells steadily, rising to a thunderous climax that feels both inevitable and overwhelming.
The song’s lyrics, however, do not match this uplifting sound. Instead, the song is a contemplative exploration of the desire to go back in time.
“Don’t you miss the breathlessness / The wildness in the eye? / Come home late in the morning light / Bloodshot dreams under streetlight spells,” laments Mumford in the song’s opening verse.
“Truth,” the album’s fifth track, stands out as the heaviest sounding on the album. It opens with a thumping bassline that is later accompanied by electric guitars, making it easily the most sonically aggressive track on the record.
While Mumford & Sons are no strangers to sweeping and hard-hitting songs, Rushmere is also willing to strip down to the barest instrumentation, as they do on “Where It Belongs” and “Anchor.”
While these cuts offer the clearest look into the haunting themes of the album, allowing the listener to focus on the reflective lyrics, their sparse instrumentation borders on dreariness. The tracks are also hurt by their placement within the album—when played back to back, they sound nearly identical.
The band strikes a much healthier balance on tracks like “Surrender.” It starts slow, drawing the listener in, before building to a powerful crescendo. The song allows for the introspective spirit of its lyrics to shine through while also maintaining a sense of momentum. This is Mumford & Sons at their best, crafting a song that naturally climbs to its emotional apex.
While Rushmere does not manage to reach the heights of Sigh No More or Babel, the album is a worthy addition to Mumford & Sons’ discography. In just 10 songs, the band crafts an album that feels expansive and fully realized, sonically and emotionally. Though a few of the darker tracks drift toward tedium, the soaring moments breathe life back into the album and make it a worthwhile listen.
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