‘The Wolf’ is the latest single from Mumford and Sons and marks a continuation of this “new direction” the band have taken themselves on. Those of you lucky enough to have heard ‘Wilder Mind’ in full on the exclusive plays on Record Store Day will have more of an idea but for the rest of us ‘The Wolf’ bounds out as a second single from the record; all bared teeth and snarling aggression; well as much as you’re likely to get from Marcus and the sons.
Maybe touring with The Vaccines has left it’s mark on Mumford and Sons. There’s a distinct feel of that wall of sound that Justin Hayward-Young has stamped all over the charts in recent years. It’s not quite ‘Norgaard’. In fact if you replaced the distorted guitar with banjo and toned down the drums a little, this would be a straight up good old fashioned foot-stomper that could easily sit on ‘Sigh No More’ or ‘Babel’.
It’s bigger. It’s better than ‘Believe’ and it’ll sell millions of copies. Enough to keep the wolf from the door for a while yet.