I've hopscotched my way through Laura Marling's back catalogue (so far, I Speak Because I Can, Once I Was an Eagle and last year's Semper Femina) and there hasn't been a bad one yet, or even one that's been merely okay, and A Creature I Don't Know is filled with the interesting melodies and rhythms, distinctive perspective and occasional surprising directness that run through her others.
Her version of folk feels at once timeless and easily contemporary; she has this knack of seeming to be sauntering her way through a song, only for it to take a later turn that then seems like it was always inevitable, like the way "Salinas" turns and builds from about halfway through into something that feels almost like slowed-down classic rock and roll, or the extended swinging outro to "My Friends".
Her version of folk feels at once timeless and easily contemporary; she has this knack of seeming to be sauntering her way through a song, only for it to take a later turn that then seems like it was always inevitable, like the way "Salinas" turns and builds from about halfway through into something that feels almost like slowed-down classic rock and roll, or the extended swinging outro to "My Friends".
