Laura Marling
Albums
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Laura Marling
album reviews
Alas I Cannot Swim 9 ( 2008 ) 
Ghosts / Old Stone / Tap At My Window / Failure / You're No God / Cross Your Fingers / Crawled Out Of The Sea / My Manic And I / Night Terror / The Captain And Hourglass / Shine / Your Only Doll
Laura Marling emerged with Duffy and Adele as one of the hyped artists of 2008. The difference with Laura Marling is all the kind words are fully justified. Imagine a crowded record shop with speakers blaring out the usual chart stuff. There's hustle and bustle as customers talk above the din, trying to hear themselves and each other. Then, Laura Marling comes on the store radio, perhaps 'Failure'. It sounds so unlike the chart dross that a few discerning customers stop talking and try to listen. Strings permeate through the Saturday morning hubbub and a few more customers stop talking. A hush of sorts descends and it's weird that it coincides with an attractive acoustic guitar pattern. I can hear Joni touches during 'Failure' and the majestic 'Night Terror', too. Yet, she doesn't overplay it or repeat herself - the songs are here to tell stories.
Let's take 'The Captain And The Hourglass', just one of many album highlights. It's so well put together. Opening with an acoustic guitar pattern, her vocals enter immediately setting out the lyrical story-telling. Her voice is warm and sounds authentic in a number of genres simultaneously. There are hints of folk and hints of country. Around the minute mark, a simple piano part adds texture. Towards the two minute mark, her acoustic playing picks up a notch with renewed purpose, strings faint in the background to be hardly heard. Again, texture is added. A violin enters, a fiddle sails thrillingly away. The song has layers added along the way and ends up an instant classic and an utter triumph. She doesn't labour the point, the song ends. You don't want repetition; you want to be left yearning for more.
Laura Marling's father, also a musician, would play her Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan albums during her formative years, pressing home the point that said artists made 'real' music. I listen to Laura Marling and think Richard Thompson, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Nick Cave, Polly Harvey and Eliza Carthy. I listen to the way the strings just shine majestically to add suspense to 'Night Terror'. We may already have an album of the year then, and if we don't I really look forward to whatever albums turn out to be better.
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| Readers Comments Jamie Hall jjay75@gmail.com She is incredible. Theres so much depth to everything she's writing. Its just astounding in every way, by anyones standards. Want to say thank you for introducing me to her music :) kieran donnan This folk musician was seventeen when she released her My Manic and I E.P. Now I am older than she is, yet she certainly struck a chord with me with this album. She has all the creative qualities of youth and she knows exactly what words to choose at the right moment on some occasions, when to play down her strumming, and best of all she sells her album with mementos of every song and a ticket to see her perform live. Of course this is a limited offer but it demonstrates a very wholesome and colorful side to this new musician. The new single Ghosts, which I heard only a few weeks before I heard the album, is a brighter shade than her earlier release. It has all those characteristic entwined qualities; helplessness, optimism, playfulness and yet a sad sort of melancholy that's further yet balanced with the occasional twinkling glockenspiel. The lyrics- as ever- are lovely and are almost a dialog between two broken-hearted people who lean on each other for a time. It! is of course very sad yet the music makes the whole story uplifting in a curious sense. Marling's music epitomizes the feelings of someone struggling to realize the world they are in, especially in Failure, where despite the title it is a very reassuring piece, with swirling violins and Marling's words quite soothing to hear: “Don't cry child; you got so much more to live for; don't cry child; you've got something I would die for; and if it comes to the rain; just be glad you'll smile again; because so many don't...” You're No God and Cross Your Fingers, certainly lift the album somewhat, the latter more so for certain. It is a quirky, melodic piece with Marling dreaming up ways to bring her lover back to life (in a manner of speaking- that is to fill him with hope again), crossing fingers and holding toes in an attempt to instill some life back into the things which seem to be buckling under pressure. The interlude that follows has some refreshi! ng brass and is quite appropriate for what follows. I! mention ed the My Manic and I E.P. earlier and following the interlude two songs from the said release appear. They are my least likely choices, though My Manic and I is very much the song that brought her to the surface of the music consciousness so I may be wrong. New Romantic is missing here and I find that very much a pity and a loss for this album, as it would have been fitting after the interlude. However, the two selections will suffice and they carry on to the end quite cohesively. Although there are some more highlights I will leave that for the reader to discover for themselves. Your Only Doll (Dora) closes the album just as effectively as Ghosts welcomed us into this impressive debut. Birds twitter in the background as Marling asks what she can do with a ghost who refuses to be hers, linking back to the first piece. Her honest voice resounds, yet it seems she us leaving us in a wilderness by ourselves; there are no answers for her to give and what more is there t! o expect. An honest musician who I imagine will become a much larger presence as she grows older. She is very much welcome in a society which wholly subscribes to flimsy pop music with little reference to inner emotions. |
I Speak Because I Can 8½ ( 2010 )
Devil's Spoke / Made By Maid / Rambling Man / Blackberry Stone / Alpha Shallows / Goodbye England (Covered In Snow) / Hope In The Air / What He Wrote / Darkness Descends / I Speak Because I Can
We have a touch of Joni Mitchell, a touch of Americana, much Dylan, a little bit of Leonard Cohen. A Nick Drake foam round the edge of the plate yet a big juicy slice of medium-rare Laura Marling slap bang in the middle of the plate. That's what's important, isn't it? For a second album, Marling has been clever though. She's re-worked a couple of early b-sides, recorded a couple of newer tunes and thrown in the highlights of the bits inbetween. Thus, many of the songs here will already be familiar to those watching Laura playing live around the UK. Some have criticized Marling for this approach, others have realised this is exactly the sort of thing the likes of Dylan and Mitchell had to do back in the day in order to keep releasing a new album every year, or so.
We open then with 'Devil's Spoke', Marling backed ably by various musicians, including fellow top ten album charters, Mumford & Sons. It's spirals across a desert, strident guitars and powerful vocals full of a confidence that was rarely there for her debut LP. Has she grown then? Well, of course she has, she's twenty now and she was seventeen then. I do apologise for bringing her age into this review, yet it is relevant. She hasn't just progressed due to playing/touring and dreaming. She's still learning anyway, life intruding into her art. Well, 'Devil's Spoke' twanging furiously across America doesn't particular demonstrate this, although it is certainly a great sound. 'Made by Maid' and 'Rambling Man' demonstrate more the way she weaves ordinary events and poetry into her work. Both tunes are very Dylan, although 'Made By Maid' can reasonaly also attract comparison to both Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake. Ah yes, that old Nick Drake foam upon which you place yourself. That old melancholy dreaming and wistful romance. We progress through similar such simple and evening patterns until the lovely 'Goodbye England' sends shivers throughout any reasonably emotional and romantic mind. Her voice here, as with 'Devils Spoke' is less reminiscent of her Fathers collection of LPs than it is pure, lovely English Rose. The strings mix with her acoustic guitar, she plays some decent lines and you know all the comparisons to Joni/Bob etc everyone is making? Well, songs like this are why. This isn't just patische, this is, astonishing as it may sound, just as good.
The final four tracks seem like a seperate release, an EP tacked onto the end of a mini-album. The Quality just isn't the same as before even though the approach is the same, eg, Laura plus acoustic plus occasional friends and musicial guests. Only really 'Darkness Descends' shines in this final four song stretch. Why should that be? Maybe she ran out of songs. Maybe, more realistically with the knowledge her next album is already complete, that's she's cleverly setting herself up as a genuine album artist of a kind England hasn't produced for many a year. Well, it's worth a thought, isn't it? Back to 'Darkness Descends' just as the spring sunshine beats through my living room window.... Mumford & Sons sounding far better playing a supporting role to Laura Marling than they ever do on their own. That enough is proof Laura is no fluke. Well, two great albums in a row to open your career would be proof enough that Laura is the real deal.
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this page last updated 11/04/10
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