Mumford & Sons decided not to change their sound on Babel, which is the follow-up to 2009's highly successful Sigh No More, which elevated them to international fame.

], it was finally announced via their official website on Monday, 16 July 2012 that their new album Babel would be released in the UK on 24 September, and the following day in the US.

Babel was made available for preorder on the band's official website on Monday, 23 July, when it was announced that the album would also be released as a vinyl LP and a deluxe edition with additional tracks.

Club found the entire album "sonically impeccable", even though Mumford's imagery seems "like go-to words in a lazy songwriter's starved lexicon.

"[20] Melissa Maerz of Entertainment Weekly viewed that the music will convince listeners who cannot appreciate "lyrics this earnest", as the band "has mastered the emotional gut-punch of quiet/loud dynamics".

[15] Kelly O'Brien of State praised the band's "unrestrained ardour and zealous poetry", and wrote that they "manage to play loudly and boisterously, without ever making the descent into cacophony.

"[24] Will Hermes of Rolling Stone cited the band's lyrics as the album's defining characteristic, writing that they use "church flavor" to "supersize and complicate love songs.

[25] In a mixed review, Kevin Perry of NME called it an "average", "middle of the road" album and "a retooled, streamlined adaptation" of Sigh No More.

[19] Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune found its songwriting "pedestrian" and felt that the "loud-quiet-loud dynamic" of both the singing and the music "becomes repetitive.

"[26] AllMusic's James Christopher Monger felt that its "incredibly spirited" songs "bark much louder than they bite" and found most of the album "delivering its everyman message with the kind of calculated spiritual fervor that comes from having to adapt to the festival masses as opposed to the smaller club crowds.

"[22] Andy Gill of The Independent headlined his review "A Heart-to-Heart with the Nu-Folk Romantics" and accused Mumford of "wallowing self-absorption" while lacking "metaphor and metonymy".

[17] Kitty Empire of The Observer called Babel "an anodyne record, lacking the shivery authority of Laura Marling's work", and viewed the band's "lack of nuance" as counterintuitive, writing that "folk is a malleable resource, and here it is stripped of all politics or witness-bearing, becoming an exercise in romantic exegesis for nice men with mandolins.

The film contains interviews and footage with the band recorded by the duo Fred & Nick whilst on the Gentlemen of the Road touring circuit, including two sold-out concerts at Red Rocks.