The decadence of the recently refurbished Voodoo Rooms melds the saloon culture of the America’s cowboy frontiers with the refinement of contemporary Britain. Mumford and Sons come across as this venue’s conceptual twin, dressed for a Levi’s catalogue photoshoot while exuding an unmistakably British personality. Leaders of London’s new folk revival, Mumford and Sons took advantage of their appropriately faux-rustic setting and carried a willing audience to a bucolic universe replete with rolling hills, unrequited love and corruptible souls.

“It’s been a long drive up here, and we’re a bit cranky,” warn the Mumford boys as they tune up. But the delicious harmony-driven opener, ‘Little Lion Man’, quashes any possibility that this might turn out to be a lukewarm affair. The bluegrass act rattle through a well-rehearsed repertoire which finds its climax in the glorious ‘White Blank Page’, for which the audience reserve their heartiest applause of the evening.

Despite their unusual linear formation, the absence of an imposing drum arrangement ensures that the much-hyped quartet avoid appearing cramped on stage. Ben Lovett provides a synthesized, but authentic-sounding percussion throughout, until Johnstone whimsically produces a kit for the climactic ‘Dust Bowl Dance’, the only song that really deviates from the comfortable territory of melodic folk.

Each rendition is visceral, sincere and professionally executed. However, it is between songs that the audience can identify a project still in development. To fill time, the outfit mistakenly leaves much of the work to banjoist, Country Winston who plays for immature laughs with contrived awkward silences, unfinished sentences and stories about photographing his companions urinating, incongruously shattering the established reverie. It is in these moments of untidiness that the exasperating, though no doubt well intended, shouts of “Ben Lovett bloody loves it!” resound from over-familiar sections of the crowd.

Mumford and Sons are already regarded as pioneers of the contemporary folk scene along with the likes of Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale. However, it is clear that if they are to exceed the achievements of their peers, the boys must devise a consistent onstage formula that maintains the dreamy spell cast by their music.