★★☆☆☆
Two Stars
Laura Marling returns with her fourth studio offering this week. She has been characterised by her ghostly complexion, heartbroken outlook and perpetual shyness, having once likened performing live to having toothache.
Despite a definite maturity in her sound on this album, it’s just really boring. The first four songs were recorded in one sitting, extensively highlighted in the press release, and probably why they all sound exactly the same. Why stretch out fourteen minutes of music that could’ve quite easily have been condensed into two?
Musically, the sitar is reminiscent of the Beatles circa 1968 which brings a sense of authenticity to proceedings but any connotations of an ‘Eastern’ feel are undermined by the open harmonies that are more Celtic than Chinese with the presence of the Baron, probably mistaken for Indian Tabla. An added layer of authenticity is added by the apparently ‘frenetic’ guitar riff that sounds as if it’s been directly lifted from Joni Mitchell’s ‘All I Want’ but without quite the same level of originality, or talent.
The lyrical landscapes which Marling constructs rescues this album. They flow out of the twenty-three year old with highlights including “when we were in love, I was an eagle and you were a dove,” and “I cured my skin, now nothing gets in” but even these remain slightly clichéd. Although comparisons will, no doubt, be drawn to other releases such as The National, and even David Bowie, in that their albums should be appreciated as a whole, ‘ a standalone work’, with utterances of the ‘resurrection of the album’ and other similarly wild assumptions, Once I Was An Eagle simply isn’t good enough. Continually trying to assert her own sense of authority and authenticity, Marling, musically at least, never quite meets the expectations placed on her for this latest offering, nor showcases the songwriting abilities we’ve come to expect of this minstrel. A resounding disappointment.
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