Mumford & Sons have released their sixth studio album, 'Prizefighter', featuring our focus track, Badlands (with Gracie Abrams).
Released last month via Island Records and Gentlemen of the Road, the record was co-written and co-produced alongside The National’s Aaron Dessner at his Long Pond Studio in upstate New York.
Prizefighter follows the 2025 release of RUSHMERE. The album captures the band at their most open and instinctive. It’s a collection that feels both deeply personal, instinctive and unguardedly communal. Marcus Mumford’s lyrics grapple with resilience and striving, singing with a mix of confidence and urgency.
Listen to ‘Badlands’ on Red Devils Records.
Written a mere seven months on from the arrival of RUSHMERE, in just ten days, they’d written more than an album’s worth of songs. For Marcus, Ben Lovett, and Ted Dwane, the sessions were as much about rediscovery as recording. Days spent writing in Hudson cafés and nights spent around Long Pond’s kitchen table gave rise to songs that feel unpolished in the best sense—alive with first takes and the joy of simply making music together again. Re-energised, rejuvenated and in the form of their lives, Prizefighter embraces and reflects that full-strength energy and enthusiasm with 14 songs of light, shade and everything in-between.
That openness extended to the studio door too. Mumford & Sons welcomed collaborators into the studio, calling on the likes of Hozier, Gracie Abrams, Chris Stapleton, Gigi Perez, and Dessner himself. Their presence underscored the band’s commitment to community and connection.
On the album, Marcus Mumford says, “We feel like we’re hitting our prime as a creative force. We’re putting everything we have into this now, and we’re using everything about our experience so far to embrace exactly who we are. We’re comfortable in our skins these days. And Prizefighter is us going for it – serious and playful, sometimes bruised and always hopeful. We’re nowhere near done yet.”
“I hope and believe and we’re in the beginning of something we don’t want to let up on. I’m more excited to be in this band than I’ve ever been.”
