Mumford & Sons
Delta

The Mumford & Sons attempt the leap towards their final step, the ultimate maturation, with this new “Delta,” the fourth studio album from the British group.

Kissed by almost instant success with their debut effort, the London quartet arrives at this new endeavor after three albums that climbed to the top of almost all worldwide charts with ease (the last one being “Wilder Mind” from 2015, followed a year later by an interesting EP recorded during the band's South African tour, enriched with collaborations with local artists — Baba Maal, Beatenberg, and The Very Best) and a certain load of expectations from the now extensive fan base acquired over the years.

It must be said that not everyone fully embraced the similar indie-rock turn of the previous “Wilder Mind,” and the photographs of more traditional instruments coming from the recording studio had given long-time fans hope for a return to the folk sound that brought the London band their fame. In reality, Mumford confirms that they are no longer that band even this time, crafting a rich and varied album that only partially resorts to this type of arrangement: traces can be found in the first single “Guiding Light,” one of the most beautiful tracks on the album, where, however, the folk instrumentation is just a piece of the puzzle, also composed of more sophisticated and full-bodied sounds that impart a very marked epic quality to the track.

An epic quality that often repeats in many other tracks on the album, from the perfectly escalating title track, “42,” and the second single “If I Say” to the cinematic and beautiful “The Wild,” which at times sounds like a Hans Zimmer soundtrack; there are also songs that represent a partial return to the origins, for example, the intense "Beloved," to the delight of the aforementioned early fans. And then the Mumford also dare with the surprising “Darkness Visible,” with its bold and unusually noisy crescendo (for the band in question) that splits between instrumental and spoken word, opening up an important window onto a future in unexpected directions.

Producer Paul Epworth, a clever fox who jumps effortlessly from Adele to Thurston Moore, manages to put some order with considerable success in a sea of very rich sounds, at times perhaps too rich. His contribution is fundamental in properly layering and without overdoing a sound that is already well-defined in itself.

It was difficult to throw so many ideas into the pot and hit the mark: the Mumford & Sons manage to complete the “adult age mission” already with this album, marking the definitive maturation of a band that finally definitively finds a clear-cut identity.

Best track: Darkness Visible