The fact that bracing Brit-folk singer/songwriter Laura Marling was just 17 when she recorded the Mercury Prize-nominated Alas, I Cannot Swim has become every much the bit of biographical shorthand as mentioning Lily Allen's famous dad or Robyn's late-90s U.S. stardom. It may seem at first unfair given how many pubescent rockers come down the pike, but artists who mine a folkier, more personal vein, like Marling or Conor Oberst or Patrick Wolf, do tend to open themselves up to greater scrutiny-- yet are also more readily rewarded with touts of prodigal genius. Such clearly heard, lyric-driven music almost can't help but assume an aim towards profundity regardless of its actual goals. When such striving stumbles, we call it "precociousness" and assume the neophyte will continue to hone his or her introspective powers with each passing year. But is this always a good thing, to encourage a young artist of deep feeling to continue burrowing more deeply?
The thing I worry about with Marling is that she's already being heralded for evincing wisdom beyond her years-- what happens when the years catch up? Will she feel compelled to keep turning more and more starkly inward, and sacrifice her charm in the process? Lyrically, Alas is a sober document, but its best songs don't demand an abundance of explication or poetics to work their sad-eyed magic. Liking Marling best when she keeps things at the level of teenage romance may sound reductive, but young love is one of pop's bedrocks, and clearly the young songstress can tap into reservoirs of immediacy that a team of balding middle-aged guys crafting expert teen-pop chart-toppers can't as easily manage.
As a vocalist Marling may evoke the grown-up weariness of Beth Orton, but the superior first half of Alas is consumed with depictions of decidedly youthful ardor, whether it's the young man in "Ghosts" who "went crazy at 19" from his inability to escape the memory of past loves, or the general teenage fatalism conveyed in "Old Stone" and its refrain, "10,000 years and you're still on your own." Marling flashes wit in "Failure" in her realization that a once-worshipped rock singer's "songs were pathetic," and the accompanying music of the album's first act admirably matches her heart's cynical but still intense effusions, whether it be the tense gallop of "Ghosts", the swelling melancholy strings of "Tap at My Window" or the genuine electric momentum of "You're No God".
Almost perceptibly "maturing" before our ears, however, Marling spends much of the record's second half mired in vague symbolism and unfortunate logorrhea, with her music frequently seeming to grind to a halt from the strain. That's not to say Marling lacks the facility to put across complex thoughts and feelings, only that she needn't confuse wordiness with depth, which is just the sort of thinking that leads to groaners like "the gods that he believes never fail to amaze me" or "the sky and I, we've had our fights, and I'm coming 'round to rain," which damn near ruins the otherwise lovely and gripping "The Captain and the Hourglass".
It was a mistake for Marling not to find a place on Alas for "New Romantic", a song from an earlier EP that ended up lending two thoroughly inferior tracks to her debut long-player. Instead of the gothic stiltedness of "Night Terror" (which has nothing to do with cobras, sorry), "New Romantic" finds Marling bemoaning her "lonesome gait," but also worrying about things like being thin and turning into her mother in far more pragmatic terms while reminding us (and herself) that "I'm still pretty young." Hopefully, 90s baby Marling will remember there's nothing wrong with this assertion for at least a good little while.
