Laura Marling: 'I Speak Because I Can'

Since Marling released her debut album as an 18-year-old in 2008, English folk bands have assumed a chart presence hitherto unknown. With the likes of Mumford & Sons and Noah And The Whale achieving unforeseen mainstream success and so, given her connection with both bands, there is a certain amount of pressure and expectation surrounding the release of this her sophomore effort.

Certainly on first impressions it seems that the need to produce a worthy follow up to the widely lauded 'Alas I Cannot Swim' has weighed heavily on Marling, for gone is the blond ingénue to be replaced by a stern schoolmistress brunette look. It is a transformation suggestive of a new found maturity; a maturity that is reflected in the songwriting. Whereas 'Alas...' was an album of equal parts pop and folk influences, full of youthful brashness, abstract lyrical flights of fancy and an appealingly untempered joyousness, 'I Speak Because I Can' is a darker, more somber and reflective collection of traditional folk featuring songs of stoical defiance and yearning.

Opener 'Devil's Spoke' is a strangely subdued rattling folk stomp that is reminiscent appropriately enough of Led Zeppelin’s 'Bron-Y-Aur Stomp'. 'Made By Maid' is the first of a string of pared down, minimalist folk ballads - see also 'Blackberry Stone' and 'Alpha Swallows' - that with its spindly acoustic guitar and maudlin vocal struggles to define itself, failing to escape the prevailing torpor.

'Hope In The Air' is better, with its folk traditional ambience underscored by brooding guitar, banjo and piano allied to a stirring, impassioned vocal, complete with religious overtones that is equal parts Martha Wainwright and Rachel Unthank, whilst 'Darkness Descends' offers a welcome return to the imagistic lyrics of 'Alas...', backed by a Laura Veirs-like jauntily spooky guitar figure.

However, the undoubted highlights of the album come in the shape of 'Rambling Man', a prettily melodic alt-country song based around marshal drums, banjo and a lilting vocal that positions Marling as the heir to Emmylou Harris and the title track 'I Speak Because I Can' which eschews traditional folk structures to produce a song that is as close to pop as the album comes It's all the better for it, with a full band allowing her to break free of the sullenness that pervades the album, eliciting the one truly ecstatic moment on the record.

'I Speak Because I Can' is a superbly crafted record, but it suffers from a premature maturity - which sits at odds with her youthful exuberance - and a sense of burden that stubbornly refuses to unleash her remarkable voice. She feels shackled here when she should be soaring.



Released on 22nd March 2010 by EMI.

Written by Sam Monk.