Hometown: London.
The lineup: Marcus Mumford (vocals, guitar, drums), Winston Marshall (banjo, dobro), Ben Lovett (keyboards, organ), Ted Dwayne (double bass).
The background: There's no denying bands' ability to hit the ground running these days. Mumford & Sons only formed in December 2007 through a shared love of country, bluegrass and folk, but they have the requisite air of lives having been lived, their music suffused with world-weary experience, such that you'd assume they'd been going for years. They don't sound tentative, or at least they only do so when their songs require a sense of faltering fragility. They sound fully formed, as though they were destined to make this music; as though they had an idea of how they wanted to be and sound and here it is, perfectly realised. Whether you like it or not, you've got to admit that what they do, they do well.
Their tracks so far are very impressive. With the sensitive Chris Martin-ish timbre of singer Marcus Mumford, their song White Blank Page sounds like Coldplay reincarnated as hillbillies, with mournful fiddles taking the place of magniloquent keyboards. Roll Away Your Stone could be a long-lost field recording by some weather-beaten American folkies. Mumford & Sons make a mockery of the notion of authenticity: on Feel The Tide Turning, as elsewhere, they do a convincing impression of musicians from a different time and place, an impression enhanced by the crackle and static of their DIY recordings. And with its banjos and bouncy gait, Feel... has the eerily melancholy yet jolly'n'jaunty thing down pat.
They're not ancient blues wailers or toothless bluegrass inbreds from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. They're young Londoners in their early 20s who happen to be close friends with nu-folksters Noah And The Whale, while Mumford, who actually was born in the States but grew up over here, moonlights as drummer with that other preternaturally wise and weathered-sounding performer Laura Marling. Touring the UK and beyond with Marling encouraged Mumford to form his own band, but his players aren't sessioneers or backroom boys any more than they are his spawn.
They came together like this: Mumford was scribbling private thoughts he had about inadequacy and insecurity on the back of envelopes - writing songs, by his own admission by "ripping off Shakespeare" - in his university bedroom in Edinburgh. He was reunited with old friend Winston Marshall when the latter's bluegrass act, Captain Kick & the Cowboy Ramblers, performed in the city. Marshall then started promoting country nights at the Bosun's Locker on London's Kings Road, which is where he and Marcus first started performing together with another old friend, Ben Lovett (aka Ben Lovett Bloody Loves It) on keyboards. Marcus used to play drums with BLBLI in a jazz band. Marcus then met Ted Dwayne, alias T-Bear, while playing in yet another band, and Mumford & Sons were born. Within months they'd bypassed adolescence and middle age to alight upon the sorrowful sound of old men contemplating their lost youth, which is where we came in.
The buzz: "An enchanting experience, a unique discovery."
The truth: If you've never heard any post-war American acoustic music, they will indeed sound unique.
Most likely to: Make you feel like you're in Greenwich Village.
Least likely to: Make you feel overcome with juvenile joie de vivre.
What to buy: Mumford & Sons' debut EP will be released by Chess Club in early June.
File next to: Will Oldham, Palace Brothers, Gillian Welch, Woody Guthrie.
Links: www.myspace.com/mumfordandsons.
Monday's new band: Jonas Brothers.