The Airportline: Observations

With connections to the regenerated London folk scene, or more than connections, they were Laura Marlins former band, Mumford and Sons released their debut album Sigh No More in 2009. With connections to Airportline favorites, and best Album of 2009 winners, Noah And The Whale, this orchestra brings another batch of excellent London based folk music. This special branch of folksters that have no problems with bluegrass, Irish folk tunes, pure storytelling and enjoy mixing it with a beautifully and earnest sounding modern folk that with great ease comes and fills the void that so many of us needed to fill after Fleet Foxes ordered beards on all popular musicians.

What comes out is earnest, and not seldom grand modern folk with a fantastically organic instrumentation. It is not surprising to learn that the producer also was behind the shifts when of the best albums of the 2000s, Arcade Fire’s 2004 magical and still unbelievably and impressive Funeral, was recorded. Sure, Mumford and Sons does not bring that kind of new tone as Arcade Fire did, or the same kind of daring drama and darkness of the latest Noah And The Whale output. But they do hit your heart in the same way as melodramatic British movies do, and if I were an atheist I would maybe even call this album a bit religious at times. Just listen to the pompous bluegrass soul chorus in Roll Away Your Stone or the thunderous chorus of standout The Cave (see above), a song that in its own would make me go and buy leather boots and move to the Amazons where I would listen to Bob Dylan and play some banjo.

Its not the new direction or the heroic risks that make Mumford and Sons such a terrific band, it’s the perfect touch they have on what works, like they made a country version of the surprisingly impressive 2009 Deportees album Under The Pavement The Beach, and even though they are not paving any new roads, Mumford and Sons know how to use the twists and turns on that familiar gravel road that so many folksters before them have walked down. They have undeniable potential and with some more bold reaches these guys can make something truly spectacular, the trumpet in Winter Winds tells me they already have. But then again, I was always weak for trumpets.