(self-titled)

This is an album in which Mumford embraces and forgives his own, to deeply moving effect.

Blake Mills’ production is exquisite throughout what is Mumford’s most crafted studio recording to date; this album is a career-best for the musician. While it is undoubtedly an emotional and often heart-breaking listen, it’s also a record full of defiance, hope and faith.

Anchored by Blake Mills' tasteful and creative production, the ten-song set feels like a small step forward for Mumford. It's both rooted in the past and primed for the future, like an exorcism gone right.

This certainly isn’t one for Mumford & Sons fans. There’s no big, foot-stomping, sing-along moments here; instead, the song arrangements are sumptuously layered, built on many little, delicate, moving parts, masterfully put together by producer Blake Mills.

Otherworldly music-box twinkles on the mournful “Only Child,” a gentle midtempo strut rising as the Monica Martin duet “Go in Light” nears self-acceptance — illuminate the close-to-the-bone lyrics while also placing Mumford’s voice in musical contexts that differ from his namesake band’s output. Those subtle differences are just enough to underscore the personal voyage (self-titled) takes.

Mills’ production gives the recordings dimension and depth, inevitably tempering the pain at the heart of the songs.

It feels uncomfortable for me to point out that there aren’t a lot of tunes on this record. This stuff has to come out the way it wants. It’s hardly singalong material. It is – necessarily – heavy. But it also fulfils Mumford’s intention, learnt from Beyoncé, he says, to leave us with hope.

‘(self-titled)’ is Vegemite: the same, but different. When he strips it right back - ‘Prior Warning’, with its bleak reminiscing reflected by a sonic hark back to the London scene in which he made his early name, and the stark ‘Dangerous Game’, where Marcus’ voice allowed to linger for just the right amount of time - there’s a warm quality to his songwriting that seeps through.