Laura Marling: I Speak Because I Can (Virgin Records, 2010)
I loved Laura Marling’s debut album Alas I Cannot Swim, but unfortunately she has gotten better since those days. This is obviously an idiotic statement, but in a way I feel like her new album I Speak Because I Can is too good and too professional. It just doesn’t have as much room to breathe or room for error as the debut and therefore it has a danger of becoming a little boring in the long run. Oh well, it could be that I’m just a sad chauvinist prick who would have preferred if she had stayed as the cute girl playing New Romantic over and over again. I’d like to think that I’m not such a sad case and the reason for me not to completely fall in love with Laura’s new album is just the fact that I prefer simple things and down-to-earth production. She is still a great singer and a wonderful songwriter. Therefore I’m pretty sure that if they had released the demo tapes of the album instead of this polished and finished product, I probably would have liked it a lot more. In overall, Laura Marling is a wonderful and extremely talented folk artist capable of writing beautiful, thoughtful and inspiring songs and yours truly is a lousy and extremely foolish sad excuse of a reviewer capable of writing lame, pointless and uninspiring reviews. Which one do you believe? I think Laura will get my vote.