Laura Marling Alas I Cannot Swim by: Thomas Mendelovitis Mon:28-Apr-08 Label: Virgin Year: 2008 WB rating 65 out of 100

The critics are saying Joni Mitchell, but Laura Marling is far more comfortably placed within the territory of commercially viable new folk-pop. The genre, popular in Australia as personified by perhaps the more indie Clare Bowditch and Sarah Blasko, relies on the female subject as a vessel for candid honesty and emotive ballads. Picked up by Virgin UK, 18-year-old Englishwoman Marling fits the bill perfectly of these young female performers baring their all in song. Despite glimpses of promise, Alas I Cannot Swim suffers the fate of many major label records: inconsistency and blandness.

The comparisons with folk heavyweights such as Joni Mitchell (Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Will Oldham are also self-referenced) fail for the simple reason that Marling falls very short as a lyricist. Folk music relies on lyrical captivation, but little here enthrals. The romantic yearnings are bland and often rely on clunky rhymes: “In his bed I am queen/Unobtainable me/Sexual being/Human with feelings/The two are not me/The two will not be mine”, ‘Your Only Doll (Dora)’.

Another method folk singers use to captivate is narrative, but Alas I Cannot Swim mostly favours repetitive pop simplicity. Where employed, the stories favour hazy imagery and elliptical verses, ungainly in maintaining successful flow. ‘Night Terror’ tells of just that: in imagining placing herself in a lover’s somnambulistic scenario, Marling intones: “if they want you, they’re gonna have to fight me” Charming stuff, at least for her boyfriend. Indeed, invoking a dream’s surreal intensity is a tempting trap to fall into. Dylan did it perfectly on ‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’, a dizzying trip through disparate images. Marling’s ‘Night Terror’, however, tells of waking up ‘on Shepherd’s Bush Green/a candle at my chest/and a head on his knee’. It’s not very effective or interesting.

To continue with the Mitchell comparisons (which is helpful as she represents the pinnacle of this musical model), she had strange polymorphous structures and a devastating voice. The song craft of Alas I Cannot Swim is founded on choruses repeating snatches of the verse in thematic embellishment, which does not give new power to the songs. And while Marling’s almost-husky voice is successful in breathing the required restraint into her songs, it remains a generic soul-pop stereotype. Where the album really shines is in the arrangements, which come from Charlie Fink of indie-folk band Noah and the Whale. Neutral Milk Hotel is a reference point. Standout track ‘Ghosts’ soars when the band comes in halfway through and you get the uplift needed for this brand of emotional folk-pop. ‘Crawled out of the Sea’ shows the influence of Neutral Milk Hotel more than others, with a sea-shanty feel of rousing chorus over marching drums and a sole bugle. The shortest of the songs, at 1:16, it is probably the best.

After standout single ‘Ghosts’ opens the album, there is nothing holding attention and most of Alas I Cannot Swim passes without note. Folk music tempts this fate in its soft assuredness, but thus should enthral with the simple power of the human voice. Sadly, there is all too often nothing in Laura Marling’s vocals, or playing, to enthral. At such a young age, Laura Marling can still afford to learn more lessons on the give and take of tradition and innovation.