Remember back about a year ago when I said Mumford and Sons were your new favorite family? Well, if you don’t here’s a potent reminder. Fresh off a whirlwind week at CMJ, the boys have returned to London for some much needed rest. Announcing their new US home of Glassnote records last week and an album release in March, one can only assume they’ll be back to the US around that time.

But back to the album. Sigh No More is unbelievable (Out in the UK now on Island UK). I spun both of their previous EPs into dust over the past year and consider myself more than familiar with those tunes. But something about the album brings a new youth to their compositions. It’s the horns on “But My Head Told My Heart” or the feedback in the intro to “Little Lion Man” or just the amazing new tracks sprinkled amongst my old favorites. The album is fresh. Garnering too many comparisons to the Fleet Foxes on the basis of their folk roots (I guess?), the band is on a wholly different level. Hopefully the only comparison to make will be the sudden M&S craze when this album finally drops stateside.

The standout for me, having loved “White Blank Page” before, is “Dustbowl Dance”. After an album of extreme highs in the form of head banger cathartic bluegrass, and grueling lows from the guttural depths of Mumford’s soul, “Dustbowl Dance” is the album’s biggest crescendo. Before this song, the full potential of Mumford and Sons is not yet even on the horizon. When the bass drum starts to thump and all of a sudden the band is no longer a bluegrass jam but an exploding bomb of swelling flesh and blood, that’s when you know. That’s when you know this band is only just beginning. “Dustbowl” was the last song they played when I saw them in March and I remember staring Mumford down in the empty bar during the line “There will come a time I will look in your eye/You will pray to the God you have always denied/Then I’ll go out back and I’ll get my gun/I’ll say ‘You haven’t met me, I am the only son’”. Feeling the splash of truth in the visceral build of “Dustbowl” I was giddy.

At their last show in New York this past week for CMJ, they ended with a new song that could only be compared to “Dustbowl”. This album isn’t even out yet but I really can’t wait to see what’s next. Time to catch everyone up on the scene first. Check out my CMJ review for a full account of their show.