The follow-up to Marling's Mercury Music Prize-nominated 'Alas, I Cannot Swim' is a majestic, organic collection of folk songs that seem from another time, yet undeniably modern, too. A must-listen.
There's no point in calling Laura Marling 'older' or 'wiser'. Obviously the Hampshire native has aged in the two years since that astonishing debut 'Alas, I Cannot Swim' – the album that had everybody flabbergasted at the then-17-year-old's lyrical ingenuity and astute sense of melody. 'Older and wiser', though? Everything that Marling has done so far has seemed both shrewdly-judged and of-another-time.
Leaving aside the matter of her age, the singer-songwriter's second album is an impressive record by anyone's standards. A wonderful teller of stories, she balances her wordy lyric sheets with a blanket of warm, earthy music that's impossible not to be entranced by. 'Devil's Spoke' is a fiery opener, its scorched, paganistic acoustic strum offset by Marling's deceptively gentle vocal, while Ethan Johns's old-school recording technique (the producer records on analogue machinery and to tape only) lends a wonderfully authentic hiss and crackle to these ten songs.
The influences of all the folk greats are in full swing here: 'Rambling Man' out-Jonis Ms. Mitchell and 'Made by Maid' could be a Sandy Denny solo tune. Yet Marling is too clever to fall into the trap of mere imitations. The ominous 'Alpha Swallows' is unlike anything any of her young folk contemporaries have or will offer, 'Hope in the Air' and the heartbreaking title track are startling in their lyrical power, and the tenderness and subtlety of the underlying woodwind on 'Darkness Descends' straps a firm rein around its fast-paced, harmony-laced break.
It's probably far too soon to call this a modern classic, but the simple truth is that 'I Speak Because I Can' is the sort of album that will only improve with age. Outstanding.
