Laura Marling: 'I Speak Because I Can'

First time around, on the Mercury-nominated Alas, I Cannot Swim, Laura Marling showed herself to be a singer-songwriter of some considerable promise. Single 'Ghosts' demonstrated both lyrical dexterity and a fine knack for melody, but it was the spacious and unsettling 'Night Terror' that really hinted at the well of ability simmering behind her teenage eyes. That album was produced by Charlie Fink, frontman of folk colleagues Noah And The Whale, who featured Marling on a number of tracks from their first album (including top ten hit '5 Years Time'). The pair also dated for a while, with Marling later admitting that she "wasn't expecting" either the content or press response to Fink's break-up record The First Days Of Spring. However, there's no chance of her own second album being overshadowed by her personal life - because it's far, far too good for that.

Sure, it's never groundbreaking, but when the songs are of this standard, that really doesn't matter. In the two years since Alas, Marling has consigned any hint of offputting tweeness to the dustbin. Her voice and music seem to have taken on decades of world-weary experience without losing an ounce of freshness or spark. The gentleness of 'Rambling Man' and 'Goodbye England (Covered In Snow)' evokes Joni Mitchell's masterpiece Blue but, while the influences are undisguised, the album never sounds derivative. As an example, opener and current single 'Devil's Spoke' might boast the same throwback country/gospel/bluesy Americana shuffle of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's 2005 career high Howl, but to borrow an oft-misused phrase, she really makes it her own.

Elsewhere, there's never a second that sounds less than 100% genuine and heartfelt. On a lesser record, the needle-on-groove crackle that kicks it all off or the fingers-on-strings-on-fretboard squeak of 'Made By Maid' could sound like affectation or some awful stab at authenticity, but not here. It just sounds right. On songs like 'Alpha Shadows' and 'Hope In The Air', you feel every harsh guitar twang and piano key slam in your very core, all underlined by the pain and power of Marling's unwavering voice, expressing the most real of feelings.

And what feelings. You could stick a pin into the album's lyric sheet and hit something wonderful every time. From the fragile 'What He Wrote' ("He wrote, 'I'm broke' / Please send for me / But I'm broken too, and spoken for / Do not tempt me") to the pained heartbreak of the title track ("My husband left me last night / Left me a poor and lonely wife / I cooked the meals and he got the life"), not a word is wasted from the beginning to the end of its perfectly-formed 37 minutes. It's never much fun joining a critical bandwagon that's already fading fast into the distance, but sometimes there really isn't much choice.