LOS ANGELES — Marcus Mumford opens his debut solo album with the most personal and straightforward — and probably the finest — song he's ever released: "Cannibal," a stark acoustic ballad (at least until it erupts with pounding drums and pealing guitars) about the sexual abuse Mumford endured when he was 6 years old.
"I can still taste you and I hate it," he sings over a hushed beating-heart riff, his dry, papery voice as close as your own thoughts, "There wasn't a choice in the mind of a child and you knew it." The song — in which Mumford goes on to describe the toll of keeping his abuse secret for decades — is a startling achievement of emotional honesty from the 35-year-old singer and songwriter best known as the frontman of England's foot-stomping, Grammy-winning Mumford & Sons.
But it's not the only one on the deeply moving "(self-titled)," which Mumford made in Los Angeles with producer Blake Mills (a Grammy winner himself for his work with Alabama Shakes) and a crew of famous collaborators including Brandi Carlile, Phoebe Bridgers and Clairo. After "Cannibal" on the LP comes "Grace," a jittery folk-rock jam that recounts Mumford's playing "Cannibal" for his mom for the first time; other tunes ponder faith — both his parents are preachers — guilt and self-deception amid arrangements that lurch and glimmer in unexpected ways.
