Is it quantity over quality with another new Mumford & Sons album?
When it rains, it pours. Mumford & Sons took a seven year break between 2018 and 2025, but they’ve now released two albums in the last 12 months. Marcus Mumford and his band of merry men have clearly unclogged some sort of creative backlog, because the deluge of new music just keeps coming – the newest release being Prizefighter, 14 tracks that feel incredibly fresh out of the pipeline.
At this rate, you shouldn’t be surprised if they have even more new tracks to debut by the time they hit Auckland’s Spark Arena this May.
Prizefighter is a product of the recent unblocking that led to 2025’s Rushmere. According to frontman Marcus Mumford the band immediately continued writing new material after recording Rushmere – and a chance encounter with Aaron Dessner (super producer and member of The National) led to a creative wellspring that took everyone by surprise.
“In just 10 days, we’d written more songs than we had in the last seven years combined,” Marcus told NME.
So that’s the quantity taken care of, but what about the quality? If Rushmere was a band shaking off its rust and attempting a rediscovery of itself, then Prizefighter is that band being entirely comfortable with what they found and who they are.
In fact they’re so comfortable in themselves, they allowed some friends along to help with a bunch of the new songs – something Mumford & Sons hasn’t done before. The sudden uptick in guest spots could be because they couldn’t keep up with the new material and needed to delegate, or, more likely, M&S reached that sweet spot of contentment that isn’t scared to share the vibes.
Prizefighter is frontloaded with the guest appearances. The first song is pretty much a Chris Stapleton solo song featuring Mumford & Sons, (fun fact: Stapleton is Mumford’s favourite current vocalist), before the band take back the reigns for the rest of the 50 minute collection.
Friend of the band Hozier has a strong showing on ‘Rubber Band Man’, which seems to be the breakout song of the album (a lot of people out there identify with an on-again-off-again relationship apparently, hope you’re all doing ok!).
However the best song on the album, and one that doesn’t feature a high profile friend, is ‘The Banjo Song’. This is an instant classic Mumford & Sons track, and is going to be so fun singing along to arm in arm with your best mate or significant other, cheersing your drinks after every chorus:
“Hey I’m a mess myself, but I think I could be someone if you need someone”
Getting back to the world ‘comfortable’, the majority of the album after the first three songs falls squarely into that category. Gone are the high energy foot stompers and finger bleeding fiddle solos of their early albums. It’s now all about Marcus Mumford’s voice, sitting front and centre as the mid-tempo music supports his plaintive and thoughtful musings of life, parenthood, and aging gracefully.
“Is this all there is?” he asks on ‘Alleycat’, answering himself, “What do you mean? Is this not enough for you?”
These are clever storytellers however, and just when you are being lulled into a meditative state – the boys bring in some young energy. Gigi Perez lifts ‘Icarus’ into a high gear and gives some very welcome pep to the middle of the album.
The other guest is Gracie Abrams, who apparently had a hand across the whole album. She gifts her voice to the gorgeous duet ‘Badlands’ – another stand out track, and maybe the high point melodically of both recent albums.
The whole album feels like a band that has come to terms with it’s searching.
Marcus himself says “We feel like we’re hitting our prime as a creative force… We’re comfortable in our skins these days. And Prizefighter is us going for it – serious and playful, sometimes bruised and always hopeful. We’re nowhere near done yet.”
It’s clear Mumford & Sons are on a new level in their career, and they are loving it. That’s a blessing for fans, as it’s unlikely we will have to wait through another dry spell. The pipe is open and the music is flowing – let it rain down over you.
“I hope and believe and we’re in the beginning of something we don’t want to let up on. I’m more excited to be in this band than I’ve ever been.” – Marcus Mumford
