Roll away your stone (Mumford & Sons) (LP 3315 - 3317)

Mumford & Sons  Sigh No More (CD, Glassnote Entertainment, 2009) ***  

Mumford & Sons  Babel (CD, Universal Music, 2012) ***

Mumford & Sons  Wilder Mind (CD, Glassnote Entertainment, 2015) ****   

Genre: Folk rock, Alt-rock, Americana

Places I remember: Sigh No More was a gift from a daughter (Fanfa), JB Hi-Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: I Will Wait (Babel)

Gear costume: Little Lion Man (Sigh No More)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I was delighted to get Sigh No More as a birthday gift from Samantha. She had heard it and thought I would too, and she was right.

Like The Waterboys at their best, it's mostly spirited, rocky, rhythmically interesting music, with loads of unusual (for 2009) instruments, great lead vocals and harmonies. It reaches back to folk traditions and presents a future for folk rock. It's also fun!

Babel was like Vol 2 of a double album, but more so (think Revolver). It fulfilled the promise of the debut, and then some. 

The Biblical imagery meant that my then form class at Woodford House used I Will Wait as their song for a chapel service (a brave experiment to introduce some popular songs to go with the usual hymns). I'll always remember the song being sung by all the girls in chapel. Spine-tingling!

They couldn't keep repeating Sigh No More/ Babel, so Wilder Mind sees the band trying for newer, rockier sounds without a banjo, and with a new producer. It's good, but they ran the risk of losing the early fans on board for their first two albums.

Where do they all belong? I'm an example - I stopped with Wilder Mind.