So ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’ didn’t win the Mercury Music Prize of 2008 that saw the then 18-year-old Laura Marling gain attention and recognition for her well before her year’s debut.
The undertones of loss, optimism, love and sadness bare the same skin as the pervious long player. The unbelievably private feel of the lyrical content In song’s such as ‘Blackberry Stone’; which paints a picture of a character in a relationship not being able to leave an uncertain partnership with their loved one. The album isn’t all darkness and sorrow with the uplifting changes in songs such as ‘What He Wrote’ and ‘Goodbye England’. ‘Devil Spoke’ couldn’t be more fitting for the opening track – it’s fast/slow ‘ol England feel and the abrupt change into ‘Made By Maid’ reminisce that of the last few cuts from ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’. Towards the end of that album it felt that Laura was veering towards more of a melancholic, darker and questioning songwriter.
‘I Speak…’ depicts a more established artist concentrating in getting more out of her field than with previous tries. The move from ex-boyfriend producer to someone with Kings Of Leon and Rufus Wainwright on their CV shows professionalism included in the continued personal feel to the album. Marling herself has developed leaps and bounds since the 2008 album.
Listening to the two albums back-to-back shows a woman in a transition. This maybe thought of as a cliché but it can’t be ignored. It can be said for many folk singers that write an album in their late teens and recorded their follow-up in young adulthood.
Tinkering on the edge of something more than just a young folk singer – Laura’s voice could remind some to the German folk-singer Sibylle Baier. Her playing and feel to writing and song making has a new self-assurance to it. The mind wonders how a woman of such a young age creates these tales; her maturity has only gotten’ even older.
