I'm very wary of criticising a band I once liked. Many years ago I said on the radio that Aberfeldy were a bit lacklustre. Their drummer left me some pretty rude Myspace comments. I still occasionally think about them.
But still... the new Mumfords & Sons album is possibly the worst thing that has ever existed. It's worse than the robot drone thing that Obama has sent to kill Muslims and it's worse than the news that SARS is making a comeback.
No, of course not. That's not how a person should feel about any band but it's even more ridiculous because we're talking about the new Mumford & Sons album which leaves you with a feeling of nothing more than meh.
There's nothing there.
I listen to it and I don't feel any emotion.
I hear the lyrics and yet I am not troubled by thoughts.
It is the perfect album for enjoying the curry club at your local Wetherspoons on a Thursday between Noon and 10pm.
It is an album of noise so meaningless as to almost not exist.
But that's also not quite right. There's one song that works as a bit of an ear worm and then there's the other nine songs which sound like someone taking the piss out of Mumford & Sons, like one of those parody books that appear around Christmas that aren't actually funny but that you buy to give to that person you don't know. The banjo and the vamping keys are so Mumfordy. It's sort of like when you first notice that Robert Peston, the BBC's Economic Editor talks really slowly and then speeds up really quickly, and then after a while all you notice is the slowing down and speeding up and you don't actually hear what it is he's saying.
It never used to be like this. I remember when I first saw them live. The venue was Bannermans in Edinburgh in 2008. I say venue, it was more of a cave where some people had gone potholing and had then stumbled upon four bearded musicians singing folky harmonies. And it was great. It really was. Here were four people doing something a little bit different from the mainstream and doing it well. Every song on those first two EPs were ear worms. I would play them on my radio show and my boss would tell me to calm down on them as they were a wee bit spikey and I might put the listeners off and that would scare off the advertisers who give the station money.
I watched them go from performing to 30 odd people in that sweaty, damp Edinburgh cave to packing out the 100-odd capacity of the Tunnels in Aberdeen to the 2,500 capacity of the 02 Academy in Glasgow. I didn't quite get to see them in New York but I was close by when they recorded their first session for VH1. Now they've been on Saturday Night Live and they're playing the cavernous SECC.
As they've become more successful they've become more noticeable and that means people sticking the boot in. And I've stood by them. Even when that weird music video of them wearing white suits and being on mopeds came out.
And I still like them.
But there's none of the new material I first heard them play in Northampton in 2009 or in Glasgow a few weeks later. It's all stuff I've never heard before that sounds just like the old stuff. That doesn't make sense unless their old new stuff was a bit spikey and was in danger of scaring off the radio stations and the people who might buy their albums.
Maybe all it means is I've grown and developed more than Mumford & Sons have grown and developed as a band. Which is ridiculous because I'm a moron who's barely changed in 15 years.