You wait for one, plaintive, indie-folk outfit for ages, and then what happens?

Hot on the heels of Laura Marling and former colleagues Noah and the Whale, comes Mumford and Sons, led by the creaking croak of frontman Marcus Mumford. Their name may evoke an age of blackout curtains, recipes involving the use of powdered eggs and nervous twitching at the sound of air-raid sirens, but Marcus himself is only 22; no grizzled folkie is he.

Marcus and company -- banjo player Winton Marshall, keyboardist Ben Lovett and bass player Ted Dwane -- began in 2007 in a now-departed pub called the Bosun's Locker in London's Chelsea. They quickly formed an alliance with Marling (Mumford often plays drums in her band on tour) and Noah and the Whale, earning a reputation for rowdy, raucous live shows. The Guardian recently proclaimed, after a sell-out show at the Scala in London, the "racket they produce at full tilt suggests the apocalypse is nigh."

Their clattering, frenetic folk wasn't lost of B.B.C. Radio 1's Zane Lowe, either. In July Lowe made 'Little Lion Man' his Reaction Record and called it "the hottest record in the world" but a day later. Like Arcade Fire colliding with the Pogues, its galloping acoustic guitars and ghostly distortion have combined to create an unlikely anthem.

'The Cave', with its Fleet Foxes-eque harmonies and sudden bursts of beguiling banjo, is a foot-stomping clarion call, while 'White Blank Page' is scratchy and stripped down before swelling into widescreen size, with off-kilter harmonies that will prickle your skin.

Showing a good old fashioned desire to get an album out of the traps as quickly as possible, debut 'Sigh No More' is released on Monday. Prepare for the sound of sorrowful old men...

Mumford and Sons: 'Little Lion Man'


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