I can clearly remember the first time I heard Laura Marling. It was fall 2007, and I was just chilling on an antique brass bed in the home section of Anthropologie, when I heard a soft and delicate voice sing, “He wants to die in a lake in Geneva, the mountains can cover the shape of his nose.” This hauntingly beautiful lullaby, which I later discovered is called My Manic and I, played on as I took in the antique mirrors and paintings, nose breathed in the scent of jasmine and bergamot candles, hell, my feet even grazed their white washed wood floors covered in fake snow. It was one of those rare, “where the camera’s at, this is totally a scene in a movie” moments.
Once I heard Ghosts and New Romantic, the two largest singles off of her debut album Alas, I became a pretty big fan of this pixie-like blonde with a chillingly folksy sound. To my own disgust, I also started to follow the indie soap opera that was her life—Marling used to do vocals for Noah and the Whale, and her ex is frontman Charlie Fink, and blah blah. To me, Marling is kind of like Joni Mitchell—if you made Mitchell live in Williamsburg for a few years, then gave her a banjo, a violin, and a guitar and made her walk the Appalachian trail. Her sound is satisfying blend of folk-rock and indie, similar to Mumford and Sons, but with a darker attitude.
Her latest album, I Speak Because I Can, is a bold step in a new direction for Marling, who’s also sporting a daring new brunette look lately. The first song on the album, Devil’s Spoke is one of those impressive rip-roaring folk songs that brings up images of wood cabins and long bearded banjo players, maybe even a little clog dance thrown it. Interesting, and Marling sings it with force and strength. Listening to this album, you’ll get a lovely and familiar ballad like Blackberry Stone, which features a softened guitar and violin combo that actually allows you to drift along with Marling’s encapsulating voice, but then you get a song like Rambling Man where her voice literally drowns under a harshly strummed guitar.
The album see-saws back and forth between two styles, and these amazing and half decent tracks, end up only sounding bad because they probably shouldn’t be listened to together in the first place. That said, there are some highlights—songs that are just strikingly beautiful and that send a familiar shiver right down my spine, like What He Wrote and Hope in the Air. Darkness Descends is probably the most accomplished song on the album as far as creating some sort of synergy (fuck I hate that word) between Marling’s new sound and honoring those sounds that made her fans love her in the first place.
Her music is noticeably more sophisticated, but I’m still disappointed that she seems to have abandoned the characteristic melodies and poetical lyricism for almost half this new album. Oh, and that title track, I Speak Because I Can, builds and builds beautifully but it crescendos into literally nothing; it was anti-cathartic and my only final thought was—Huh? It’s over? Oh.
The album comes out in the US tomorrow, March 30, 2010. I give this album a 3/5.
