I was raised on Mumford & Sons albums Sigh No More and Babel, as my mom would play them in the car and around the house constantly when I was a kid. When I was old enough to have more say over the music I listened to, I played Mumford & Sons religiously, expanding to the other albums but always staying true to my favorites.
Overall, the band has six studio albums, each a unique blend of bluegrass, folk, and rock. The band released Babel in 2012, subsequently going on tour in 2013. Following the tour, the group announced an indefinite hiatus due to health and personal issues.
Mumford & Sons came back around 2020 and put out some new music in the following years. Rushmore was their latest album, released in 2025.
Now, with the release of their newest album Prizefighter and a tour announced for this summer, the band is rolling back into the spotlight after seven years.
Prizefighter is Mumford & Sons’ sixth studio album, and its release date of Jan. 20, 2026 was preceded by three singles: “Rubber Band Man (with Hozier),” “Prizefighter,” and “The Banjo Song.”
The band had expressed interest in working with other artists on this album, and that wish came true. In the album, there are tracks featuring collaborations (in many ways) with artists such as Hozier, Gigi Perez, Gracie Abrams, Brandi Carllile, FINNEAS and Chris Stapleton.
“Here (with Chris Stapleton)” is the first track on the album, and is a perfect exhibit of how Prizefighter intends to blur the lines of music genres and expand Mumford & Sons’ usual blend of folk, rock and bluegrass. The song is upbeat, sorrowful, and enchanting. It starts out with the lyric “Well, here’s my final serenade,” introducing the song as if it is a goodbye letter. Repetition of the phrase “here’s my…” throughout the beginning of the song references all of the things that the protagonist has lost or collected over a time that is seemingly coming to an end. Through, there is an air of reflection and acceptance in the upbeat tune, present specifically in the lyric “here’s my pride and here’s my shame”—as the protagonist is airing out everything he regrets and reminisces. Mumford & Sons is a band I listen to year-round, but Chris Stapleton I exclusively listen to in the summer, so this song is a wonderful mix of sound and tempo that extends across time and space.
“Rubber Band Man (with Hozier)” is hands down my favorite track from Prizefighter. This may be because it was released as a single, ahead of the rest of the album, and I’ve had the most time with it. This might also be due to the fact that Hozier is my favorite artist of all time, but I promise I’m not biased. “Rubber Band Man” explores the emotional and psychological cycle of a person, snapping back to themself and away again like a rubber band. Specifically, it explores this through a relationship, illustrating a fear of intimacy causing emotional distance as shown through the lyric “You’re a world away / But you’re still the same.” The song rounds out with a silver lining of recovery and strength in connection, specifically with the lyric “When I said ‘Forever,’ / You said ‘Get back in the car’.”
This same theme of recovery and resilience is explored in Track 4 “Run Together” and Track 8 “Begin Again.”
“The Banjo Song,” is the perfect track to follow “Here” and “Rubber Band Man.” It truly leans into the folk side of Mumford & Sons’ vibe, with the banjo at the forefront of the song. The protagonist of the song seems to be isolated, as he describes himself as “the man on the moon.” In the chorus, he asks “Well, hey, did you call? Did you fall? / Did you need someone…” asking, even though he himself is hurting, if this person needs help too, or simply someone to relate to.
Track 7, “Prizefighter,” from which the album gets its name, is a quiet and powerful song. It explores themes of crisis and the pressure of fame, which hits a lot harder when you’re aware of the band’s seven year hiatus and break from the music industry. There is a heavy repetition of the line “he’s really not me now is he?” asking this hypothetical question over and over again to drive home the conflict between performance and reality in the pursuit of success. The line “If I could, then I would / Take a piece of the sky down with me” in the song alludes to Track 9 “Icarus” on which Mumford & Sons collaborated with Gigi Perez.
The song “Icarus” is, obviously, a reference to the Greek myth of Icarus, who flies too close to the Sun with his wax wings and then falls to the ocean. The song catches the albums’ protagonist at a difficult moment, when he is reflecting on a relationship from his youth that he thought would last forever because he was flying so high that he didn’t notice the signs of the relationship breaking apart. My favorite lyric from the song is one that Gigi Perez sings: “Your feathers fit just right / You’re a fool, you’re a climber / You should’ve called it a night” which explains that Icarus’ wax wings were never the problem, his blind overconfidence was.
Gracie Abrams was in the studio when Mumford & Sons was mixing their album Rushmore, which jumpstarted her involvement with Prizefighter. Marcus Mumford, the bands’ lead singer, called Gracie the “fairy godmother” of the album. Mumford showed her Prizefighter and told her she could pick the song she wanted to collaborate on, and she chose “Badlands.” He said he didn’t expect her to turn the song into the duet, but that’s exactly what she did.
The first time that I listened to “Badlands” the only thing I could think of was how beautifully Mumford’s and Gracie’s voices blend together to create this song that can only be called ethereal. The song is both melancholy and hopeful, exploring themes of love and chaos, highlighting the two protagonists as outlaws who are living life definitely, not doing what is expected of them.
Prizefighter, as a whole album, is a beautiful combination of modern pop with Mumford & Sons’ warm folk rock. This isn’t just because of the inclusion of popular pop musicians on the soundtrack, but also because this album is a step in a new direction for the band. Mumford & Sons continues to hold onto their initial folk vibe, while charting new territory and creating a spirited new album for everyone to have on repeat as the seasons change and everything gets a bit brighter.
