Laura Marling: Once I Was An Eagle

Has there been a less likely pop star than Laura Marling? Starting out as a 16-year-old sometime member of nu-folkies Noah and The Whale, she was crippled with shyness. Journalists who interviewed Marling around her first LP, 2008’s (Mercury nominated) Alas I Cannot Swim will tell you just how unprepared the singer was for public scrutiny: she was tongue-tied, incapable of eye-contact, constantly twitching, it seemed, to run back to her parent’s baronial pile in the home counties. “It was bad. I really was shy,” she reflected a few years later. “I had problems on stage, with heart rate and what have you. There were episodes.”
Compounding her aversion to the spotlight was the public fascination with her personal life. Having split from Noah and The Whale’s Charlie Fink, she had to endure the embarrassment of hearing him write about the break-up at length on his album, The First Days Of Spring. That was followed by a relationship with Mumford and Sons’ Marcus Mumford that had the ill fortune to coincide with his group’s rise from banjo-twanging obscurity to American mega-fame. The soap opera acquired an additional layer of drama, as – shortly after Laura had ended things – Mumford hooked up with his now-wife, Great Gatsby star Carey Mulligan.
Some artists would have exploited such upheaval for all it was worth. Marling, though, has until now resisted writing explicitly about her life. All that is about to change...
Recently relocated to Los Angeles – back in the UK, incidentally, the thought of this quintessential English rose spending all day in the sun has prompted endless head-scratching – there is a consensus that, commercially speaking, Marling’s moment may have arrived. Her fifth album is receiving a dedicated push from her label, motivated, it appears, by the belief that Marling can replicate the American success of Mumford and Sons. In that context, however, it could be argued that Once I Was An Eagle is the wrong record for the game that is about to be played.
Starkly personal, it contains some of the most heartfelt lyrics Marling has ever committed to page (“You wanna be a woman ‘cos you wanna be safe… it ain’t me babe,” she snarls on ‘Master Hunter’). Strangely for a project that has been depicted as representing a confident step forward, for much of Eagle Marling seems reluctant to abide by the conventions of good pop. ‘Devil’s Resting Place’ and ‘Take The Night Off’ are based around creeping acoustic riffs and Marling’s low, harried voice. ‘I Was An Eagle’, which feels like it is supposed to be the collection’s centre-piece, is slow and strummy, Marling delivering the line, “I will not be a victim of romance” with teeth bared. However, the drama is mostly beneath
the surface.
Ultimately your response to Once I Was An Eagle may well depend on whether you’re primarily a lyrics person or a song person. Marling has meticulously stitched together this record word by word and some of her writing is devastating. But – unless repeated listens uncover earworm qualities I have yet to detect – I can’t imagine humming any of it in the bath. ED POWER

Rating: 7/10
Key Track: ‘I Was An Eagle’