Mumford & Sons return today with the song "Guiding Light," their first new music since the 2016 Johannesburg EP that found the English quartet collaborating with African artists like Baaba Maal and The Very Best. Coming on the heels of 2015's Wilder Mind, the Johannesburg EP showed a return towards the more acoustic/folk-based music Mumford & Sons first created, and this new song combines elements from all their releases and phases of their career.

You've got the intimate close harmony from Sigh No More's "Winter Winds" or "Little Lion Man," married to the fleshed-out rock elements that marked a radical sonic change on Wilder Mind, itself indicative of the punch the expanded live lineup has delivered for years.

Is The Current's audience ready to embrace Mumford & Sons in 2018/19? Our audience was the first in the U.S. to support them widely (see then-City Pages' writer, later Current Local Show host and writer Andrea Swensson's 2010 piece where she coined "The Current Effect"), but in recent years despite their own self-deprecation (See "Hopeless Wanderer" video), there has been a bit of a backlash against the band, not unlike Coldplay, who continue to fill arenas while earning snickers from some.

Hopefully everyone will listen with open ears and hearts, and make up their minds on the new Mumford music on the basis of the music. The band clearly have a spot in their hearts for the Twin Cities too, noting at last year's Iceland Airwaves Festival that the last time they visited was April 21, 2016, and they were swept away in the outpouring of emotion for Prince outside of First Avenue.

Wherever you reside on the Mumford question, this fall and next year promises to be big for the band, who will likely tour the U.S. in the Spring and Summer (possibly a return of their Gentlemen of the Road festivals? Those tours featured artists like Foo Fighters, Jenny Lewis, Flaming Lips, and the Vaccines as support), after the release of the album this fall.

What do you think of the song? Let us know in the comments below!

Related

• Interview: Mumford & Sons at Iceland Airwaves 2017
• Theft of the Dial: Mumford and Sons
• Album Review: Mumford and Sons, 'Wilder Mind'
• Mumford and Sons Live at First Avenue
• Mumford & Sons: Finding Balance In 'Babel'
• Album Review: Mumford and Sons - Sigh No More
• Album Review: Mumford & Sons - Babel
• The Current Presents: Inside Mumford & Sons: Babel
• Mumford and Sons perform live in the UBS Forum
• Theft of the Dial: Mumford and Sons