When Mumford & Sons announced that their third album, Wilder Mind, would have a completely different sound from the folk rock roots of their previous records, everyone was a bit skeptical. Really, what is a Mumford & Sons song without a little banjo, a lot of intense guitar strumming and lead singer Marcus Mumford crooning out some deep, philosophical lyrics? Well, now we have our answer.
The band released the first single titled “Believe” from their upcoming album earlier today and thanks to an impressive electric guitar solo and some synthesizers, the new sound is a definitive departure from their previous hits. Mumford revealed to Rolling Stone that the sonic feel of the record isn’t the only thing that makes the single different:
We were in Texas at a wedding all together. My best friend got married in Texas, and so the family at the ranch let us stay on in an outhouse for a week, and we did a lot of writing there. I had to leave early by a day. By the time we met up in London a couple of weeks later to demo the songs that we’d been writing, the boys brought ‘Believe’ to the table and I got it and just sang. We all collaborated on lyrics a lot more on this record than we did on records in the past, and so we sat down and did rough demos for a song and that one came up like that. And we actually used the guitar solos from the demos for that song.
Does the new single sound more like a Coldplay song than a hit from the band that once gave us comedic gold in the form of their “Hopeless Wanderer” video with Jason Bateman and Jason Sudeikis? Eh, kind of. But it’s got a catchy hook and the hippies at Bonnaroo will love it so that’s all that matters.
