A true singer-songwriter is a storyteller. Through musical composition they are able to completely immerse their listener in narrative.

Sixteen was a tender age for her first album, four years on with I Speak Because I Can, Laura Marling has achieved a mastery of the art described above beyond her years and beyond what many singer-songwriters will strive towards in their lifetime.

While her youth is a fact, Marling’s timeless voice both in quality and expression belies her age as she recounts the heartbreak of love, of living and dying and all the grey in between.

We find this time around a leaning towards more ambitious and theatrical instrumental backing and production. Notably Marling has spent session time with the boys of Mumford and Sons still riding high on their 2009 successes.

The outcome is an album that marries Marling’s introspective and wistful tales with instrumental and vocal climaxes perfectly, with positive results. As with Marling’s previous writing credits there is a literary nature to her compositions. Recommended listening includes Goodbye England which stands as a piece of poetry in its own right.

With all the talk of chilling winter, the devil and darkness, Marling sits comfortably between being delicately bright and searchingly earnest. The pervading optimism could be the only aspect of her ruminations that ever so sweetly asserts her youth.

One may also have the distinct impression that yes, Marling is twenty, but she must have grown up listening to the 60s singer-songwriters and rock music of her parent’s generation, to be the artist behind such timeless perfected folk.

Laura Marling’s track Rambling Man appears below.