Revoo

Album: Sigh No More
Artist: Mumford & Sons
Genre: Folk, Bluegrass, Blues, Indie Folk, Folk Rock, Rock, Indie Rock, Country
Year: 2009
Tracks: 12
Rating: *****

This album is amazing! It's like an interesting Jack Johnson [:P] or a ZZ Top who've stopped with the badass, got a banjo player, shaved, and found religion. Yes, the lyrics are extremely God-laden throughout, with references from Genesis to Revelation via the Gospels (yes that is how you always get there, but saying from blaah to shtoo via piffk sounds uber fancy), and this is what, for me, makes it so damned good. Speaking as a cogneur de bible, this album seems to be spouting truths left, right, and centre, about God, yes, but also about romantic/erotic love, and life in general.
The music is superb, varying from mellow, simplistic melodies with low-key vocals to busy, frenzied, banjo ridden explosions of noise that inspire disbelief - these are four people playing, yet it sounds like a whole hick horchestra has joined in the fun.

Picks: This one is hard. I'd say the titular track Sigh No More because of the final stanza; I Gave You All is pretty damned passionate; Dust Bowl Dance is fantastic in it's judgement day refrain, "There will come a time I will look in your eye/You will pray to the God that you always denied/The I'll go out back and I'll get my gun/I'll say, "You haven't met me, I am the only son""; Little Lion Man, one of the singles, for the machine gun recital of the verses; and finally Winter Winds, the other single, for the simplistic and almost britpop-esque nature of the lyrics and the cheerful boisterousness of the brass-led chorus.

Shish