Incredibly, “Little Lion Man” broke [6.00] back in the day…
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[3.67]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The trailer music for a fantasy epic about TED talks.
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: Blaise Pascal, centuries ago, talked about the “God-shaped hole” in every human, fillable only by God. But recent evidence suggests it’s actually a Mumford-shaped hole — in every ad budget and Adult Hits playlist, fillable only by vaguely rousing and spiritual adult contemporary.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: Competent but obvious like their output, this may be a song where you could predict every sound based on the lyrics. This song is about being Marcus Mumford’s guiding light, and it starts out quiet and mumbly. So 30 seconds in, it has to change like there’s a bit in a hypothetical video where someone opens up some curtains, or looks up at the sky, or a female love interest opens her eyes and sees our protagonist in a NEW LIGHT. It goes through me like a barium meal but if it was soundtracking a climax in a TV show I liked I wouldn’t throw my remote at the screen.
[4]
Taylor Alatorre: It would’ve been cool to see my initial reactions to this song as visualized by one of those Frank Luntz-style instant response trackers. It would start off at a flatline until the imitation Edge guitars kick in — not exactly breaking new ground but at least a more suitable mode for this band’s obvious ambitions than imitation Old Crow. New heights would be reached at “and I’ll swear you’ll see the dawn again,” whose winding vocal melody recalls a sort of arena rock Bon Iver. A spacious chorus opens up, with resonant piano chords and nary a banjo in earshot; could it be…? But then that familiar bass drum thump shows up in the second verse and we’re dragged back down to the muddy, monochromatic earth, never to revisit those brief flashes of promise. Mumford & Sons seem permanently stuck between two impulses: a sentimental attachment to the style that made them popular and a pained realization that the novelty of unvarnished revivalism has come and gone. They might spend the rest of their career chasing the high of their 2013 Grammy performance, even if the Grammys keep inviting them back, which they undoubtedly will.
[4]
Katie Gill: Have Mumford & Sons changed or evolved their sound at all since 2009? I’m not complaining; Lord knows I listened to waaaay too many fanmixes with “Little Lion Man” on them via LiveJournal. But this feels like a slightly more polished version of their first album in a way that’s wonderfully nostalgic but also super expected.
[5]
Ian Mathers: To quote my beloved wife, when I told her who I was playing in the apartment for TSJ: “More like Buttford & Sons.”
[3]