Wilder Mind by Mumford & Sons

Wilder Mind, the third Mumford & Sons album, landed on 4 May 2015, and the first thing you notice is what's missing: the banjo is gone, the upright bass is gone, and in their place come electric guitars and a session drummer driving the rhythm. After two records with Markus Dravs, the band handed the controls to James Ford and brought in The National's Aaron Dessner, and the result swaps the stomp-and-holler hoedown for brooding, widescreen rock.

Marcus Mumford still sings like he's bleeding for it, Winston Marshall plugs in his electric, Ben Lovett layers keyboards and Ted Dwane holds down the bass. "Believe" builds slow and swells, "The Wolf" bares its teeth, and "Ditmas", "Tompkins Square Park" and "Just Smoke" followed them out as singles. The gamble paid off at the till: number one in seven countries, Britain and America included.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.