Virgin Records. 

Bloody hell.  As if it wasn’t bad enough that 17 year olds are now playing football in the premiership, and maybe even for a national team, they’re now releasing Mercury Music Prize nominated debut albums.  Truly there is no limit to the MySpace/Bebo/what’s-a-Bruce-Forsyth generation.

Not that Laura Marling (19 in February 2009 – how’s that for a gap year) makes the kind of music most often associated with her numerical peers.  Glow Sticks are absent, as are Late of The Pier style mash ups.  Instead we have some good old fashioned folk, largely acoustic with a great backing band and some able string arrangements.  Slightly retro it may be, but Marling is also out there sharing a best-album-by-a-new-solo-artist log cabin with Bon Iver and entirely deserving of hyphen overload.

Wise beyond her years, can’t believe she’s not been old enough to drink at some of her gigs, yada, yada, yada.  Too easy.  The real magic here is in how dark and moody the album is, but without being cartoonish.  Her tunes are brilliant and her voice is distinctive and diverse but most crucially her tales of heartbreak, despair and doom are sung in such a stately and almost detached way that she shines a light on characters without telling us how to feel about them, a talent impressive of a musician of any age.  First single “Ghosts” captures this perfectly: “he went crazy at 19, he lost all his self esteem, couldn’t understand why he was crying”.  Hell, I’ve been there, but the greatest empathy comes from observation without commentary.  Marling knows that less is more, and her musical light and shade adds layers of subtlety to her poignant creations.

I’m sorry, but you can take your Adeles and your Duffys and shove ‘em up those that have displeased you.  You know talent when you hear it and Laura Marling is highly worthy of our album chart praise - and our hyphen abuse.

Posted In Features, Dec 09 2008. Words - Martin