Mumford and Sons are a difficult band to define. Floating somewhere between English folk-rock and British blue-grass, the band’s debut album Sigh No More has a unique flavour that has kept it at the top of my media player’s ‘most played’ list for months. You’ll no doubt have heard the album’s first single ‘Little Lion Man’ played over the radio during the summer, in a defiant statement that seems to scream “yes, the banjo still has a place in popular music!”

The song and indeed much of the album contains an energy that is becoming increasingly rare in modern music. My favourite track Dustbowl Dance starts out controlled and calm, slowly but surely building in energy and anger like a boiling banjo-filled kettle. The poetic lyrics appear to signal a call to arms for medieval farmers, and I have no idea what the HELL to do with the revolutionary anger that generates in me; an inner-city desk monkey.

I can’t recommend this album highly enough. Look at the CDs reviewed either side of this one, ERASE their names from your memory, march down to your local record shop, and embrace the second coming of the almighty banjo!  - Ken