Concrete Playground

It’s hard to fathom Laura Marling as a mere 20-year-old. Before lending her your ears, you could be forgiven for presuming this unassuming, pretty, brunette girl to be more like Lisa Mitchell than Joni Mitchell. But when she performs, it’s as if she has summoned the sorrow, regrets and desires of a woman living more towards the end of her time than so close to the beginning.

While her first album Alas I Cannot Swim established this young folk songstress as a musician far beyond her years, her recent second album I Speak Because I Can is darker and more sophisticated, filled with poetic nostalgia such as 'Goodbye Old England (Covered in Snow)', 'Hope in the Air' and 'I Speak Because I Can'. Marling weaves lyrical narratives, expressing herself through fictional characters including Odysseus’s Penelope and scribes of wartime love letters.

Several tracks contain Mumford and Sons-style twangs and banjo riffs, which is not surprising considering she is signed to the same label as the band and girlfriend to lead-vocalist Marcus Mumford. But this is not an indie gossip column (Wait. It's not? -ed). If you managed to catch her at the Sydney Festival earlier this year, you will agree Marling’s performance was rousing. Her husky voice never falters; she speaks directly to her audience through song, slicing the intensity every now and then with a dose of witty banter.

Marling plays her Splendour sideshow at the Metro Theatre on August 2, joined by Melbourne quartet Boy and Bear, who joined Laura onstage during her last Aussie tour. A second show, with the Maple Trail as supports, has been added on Sunday, August 1, at the Factory Theatre.