Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I love Mumford & Sons. Their first two albums accompanied me through the hardest year of my life; a perfect soundtrack for transitioning from despondency to redemption through difficult trials. Not only did they have a terribly unique (and appealing) sound, Marcus is a masterful lyricist. Of course it's good for a band to follow their instincts and explore new sounds if that's how they feel. But the individual listener must decide what the significance of the change is. I am having a hard time figuring out how such a talented band saw this as legitimately progressive. They retired their folk roots and acoustic instrumentation for electronic guitars, synth and drums. This is merely an aesthetic change but for my taste it is a change in the wrong direction. It's a change from back yard barbecue to McDonald's. It a change from Salvador Dali to Thomas Kinkade. It's a change from pasta primavera made from scratch to Kraft mac 'n' Cheese. They went from unique and remarkable to plain-Jane. Vanilla. M&S now sounds like every other band on the Alt-Rock radio station and if you heard it while driving in the car it may not even register. Are they entitled to change their sound? Of course. But those who do not like the change in sounds cannot be faulted for their tastes and expressing disappointment in such changes. But the new M&S mediocrity is made truly complete by the new manner of lyric writing. Classic Marcus' writing yielded lyrics that, on the surface, seemed contradictory but stemmed from the same core of visceral, emotional existence. Depending on what mood you were in or what was going on in your life the meaning derived from his lyrics could change every single time you heard a song. Now the lyrics seem to demonstrate the same movement as the instrumentation. Equivocation and ambiguity are missing... the rich verbal images are replaced with superficial, one-dimensional motifs... While not "bad" outright, it is terribly lackluster compared to their previous work. Amidst the turmoil in life there have been times I have retreated from the daily grind just to sit and listen to "Sigh No More" or "Babel" and reflect... Not only can I never see myself doing the same with "Wilder Mind" I can't think of any time I would even bother sitting down, listening to it and actually paying attention. There's nothing "wrong" with it and I certainly couldn't fault someone who did like it. Such a person simply has completely different musical expectations and tastes than I do. Just listen to the samples. You'll know right away whether this is your cup of tea or not.