Any cultural elitist pondering whether British folksters Mumford & Sons would experience an inevitable sophomore slump and struggle to sell their next album got their answer this week, and it’s a resounding “no.” The band’s newest, Babel, isn’t due until Sept. 25, but when it hit iTunes this week for pre-orders, the record rocketed to No. 1 almost immediately. Hard sales figures aren’t available yet—since Billboard only puts together numbers for a record when it’s actually in stores—but every sale made between now and late September will be reflected in Babel’s first-week stats.
Perhaps not coincidentally, “I Will Wait,” Babel’s first single, is also doing pretty well digitally. It made its debut at No. 4 on Billboard’s digital songs chart, moving 153,000 copies of the track—not bad, considering people could just listen to it on YouTube over and over.