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MagnetOct 17, 2012Babel is the more subtle and accomplished album. [No. 92, p.56]
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Oct 10, 2012For those who never liked That Guy Who Plays Acoustic Guitar At The Party, Babel's gonna sound like the dentist's drill. For others, this still may be the point at which you put down your makeshift tambourine, get up from the half-circle and find a better room in the party house.
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Oct 4, 2012It's certainly not a departure from the band's debut, but rather a continuation.
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Oct 1, 2012I'll admit, the songs on Babel wouldn't be so painful if it weren't for the god-awful "deep" lyricism of Marcus Mumford.
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Sep 28, 2012Effectively, it is emo for Blacksmiths. This would all be semi-tolerable, were it not for the sickeningly overwrought poetry bobbing on top.
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Sep 28, 2012The real issue with Mumford & Sons is its pedestrian songwriting and predictable delivery.
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Sep 27, 2012This much-anticipated follow-up essentially repeats the foot-stomping, banjo-picking formula, but scrubs away the subtlety.
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Sep 26, 2012Consciously or not, U2-style evangelism is all over the Mumfords' bland but biblically titled second album, Babel.
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Sep 26, 2012There are images of walls and towers in nearly every song, but they don't serve as a unifying theme--a missed opportunity for an album named after a famous tower.
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Sep 26, 2012While the former saw some structural variety, most of Babel is content to follow in its older brother's footsteps, delivering a slow build from nothing to eruption on practically every track.
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Sep 26, 2012If you despised Sigh No More, then you will find nothing here that even attempts to change your mind. If you found the band's debut to be charming and fun, then Babel is absolutely worth your time and money.
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Sep 26, 2012While there are some real gems here, occasionally the songs tend to fade into generic background folk music.
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Sep 25, 2012Individually, these songs pack an emotional wallop, performed with a passion that is rare in today's indie-rock scene of disconnected cool. But taken as a giant lump, they're exhausting dead-ends: 12 straight climaxes cancel each other out - and Babel could use a little rising action.
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Sep 25, 2012The London quartet's hallmarks--plucky banjo, hard-driving acoustic guitar--are in place, but the songs are bigger and bolder, right down to Marcus Mumford's exuberant wails that now grind with more grit.
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Sep 25, 2012What the album leaves you with is the image of a little lion man, rattling his ever-expanding cage.
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Sep 25, 2012While the band will undoubtedly be criticized for playing it safe on the new record, there is no denying the music is solid despite its familiarity.
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Sep 24, 2012This critic cannot in all honesty say, with a clear conscience, that their second album is absolutely terrible. Because it plain isn't.
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Sep 24, 2012With every crescendo of catgut and steel, their lack of nuance becomes wearing.
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Sep 24, 2012If you can get past the earnest nostalgia and tweedy affectations, this isn't a bad album, just an average one.
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Sep 24, 2012"Babel" reveals a band happy to remain entirely Mumford - although a larger, smoother Mumford, offering fresh nuances and textures while emboldened by the promise of the initial mission.
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Sep 24, 2012Two albums in and Mumford & Sons still sound like a talented outfit fused to the starting block, paralyzed by the thought of having to truly race for their lives.
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Sep 24, 2012While the quartet may be perfectly competent musicians, though, their fundamental conservatism plays against them on Babel, making for an album that's entirely too familiar and safe.
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Sep 21, 2012It truly is awful.
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Sep 21, 2012Babel bowls along with the ebullient energy one expects of Mumford & Sons, like a cider-soused hoedown at an after-hours lock-in. But while this works to the advantage of their more rousing sentiments, it tends to iron out the subtler creases in some of the songs.
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Sep 20, 2012Essentially it's a honing of their 2009 debut, Sigh No More, but with more of the ferocity you encounter in their live show.
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Sep 20, 2012The power of the arrangements and Marcus Mumford's tortured-vicar vocals is undeniable. And if his conflation of love, lust and Christian spirituality sounds more like pre-dawn confusion than neat Bible lessons, it feels all the truer for it.
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Sep 20, 2012It's not perfect, but it's perfectly Mumford & Sons.
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UncutSep 19, 2012the focus on matters of the heart is limiting, reducing the genre to the level of rusticised boy-band pop. [Oct 2012, p.84]
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Q MagazineSep 19, 2012This is ultimately comfortable listening, befitting folk sounds of a resolutely un-freak variety. [Oct 2012, p.96]
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Sep 19, 2012It's very much a 'if it ain't broke' album and, for now, that's okay.
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Sep 19, 2012The band has mastered the emotional gut-punch of quiet/loud dynamics, exploding from low-murmured harmonies into full Appalachian freak-outs.
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MojoSep 19, 2012More than just a decent nu-folk album, Babel is a great pop album. [Oct 2012, p.82]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 130 out of 189
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Mixed: 21 out of 189
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Negative: 38 out of 189
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Sep 27, 2012
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Sep 25, 2012
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Sep 25, 2012