Tonight's guest on the Daily Show is Mumford & Sons and the panelists on The Nightly Show are The Lucas Brothers, Ricky Velez, and Jacque Reid.
Mumford & Sons is a a British rock band from London, England, formed in 2007. The band consists of Marcus Mumford (lead vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums), Ben Lovett (Formerly) (vocals, keyboard, piano, synthesiser), Winston Marshall (vocals, electric guitar, banjo) and Ted Dwane (vocals, bass guitar, double bass). They are on tonight to promote their new album
Wilder Mind. The album has mixed reviews garnering a
56/100 on Metacritic's Metascore and a
2.0 from Pitchfork
Their latest effort, Wilder Mind, is a "rock" record in the least interesting sense of that word—a pastiche of the genre’s most common elements, from big percussion, electric guitars, and warm synths, to poignant but ultimately surface-level lyrics. It has all the elements of radio-friendly 2015 American rock'n'roll, with very timely nods to Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, but what it’s lacking in is any kind of originality, or message—and most importantly, it’s lacking in banjo, the only thing that ever set the band apart from the bro-rock horde in the first place. With the production help of James Ford (member of Simian Mobile Disco, and producer for Arctic Monkeys) and Aaron Dessner of the National, the band has successfully created perhaps the most adequate commercial rock album of 2015. It’s fine. But fine is nowhere near good, and, when the music is this empty, it might actually be worse than bad.
Songs like "Believe" are so lumbering that they are almost vulgar. "I don’t even know if I believe/ Everything you’re trying to say to me," Mumford sings in his best Chris Martin-soft-voice, before laddering up to a loud, crunchy apex of sound that explodes into a plea for some kind of redemption. The conflict on Wilder Mind is pedestrian—the confusion of someone with nothing real to lose. On "Cold Arms", the only song on the record that provides a vague respite from the formula, pairing Mumford’s plaintive vocals with a single electric guitar, he sings of a relationship where he and his partner are simultaneously "bloodshot and beat/ and never so alive." There’s no evidence of life on the track itself, which follows every imaginable rule so closely that all traces of life are erased.
Ouch.
I kind of have to agree. Spoon's latest album
They Want My Soul is a guitar rock album but it sounds modern and classic and is full of life. This just sounds empty and calculated, like it was designed in a lab to be bland enough to have mass appeal.
The Lucas Brothers
The Lucas Brothers are Kenneth Lucas (aka Kenny) & Keith Lucas. Since their stand up performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2009) in 2012 they were featured in Rolling Stone Magazine's "Hot List," appeared on Arrested Development (2003) (Netflix), and HBO's Funny as Hell (2011). They are also the creators and stars of Lucas Bros Moving Co (2013), an animated series that premiered in fall 2013 on FOX and The Super Late Morning Show, a Comedy Central web talk show. Finally, Bret Hart is their hero.
Ricky Velez
Ricky Velez is a stand-up comedian who was born and raised in Queens. Last month he was named "New York's Funniest" by the New York Comedy Festival and one of Comedy Central's "Comics to Watch." He is repped by UTA and 3Arts.
Jacque Reid
is a television and radio personality. She was the lead news anchor of The BET Nightly News from 2001-2005. Jacque is currently one of the co-hosts of the NBC New York affiliate show called "New York Live."
Next Week's Guests
THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART
Mo 5/11: John Legend
Tu 5/12: Tom Brokaw
We 5/13: Reza Aslan
Th 5/14: Rebel Wilson