With the coinciding of her sixth album release in the throes of International Women’s Day and the direct translation of album title Semper Femina taken from an excerpt of Virgil’s Roman-era poetry which stated ‘woman is an ever fickle and changeable thing’, even Laura Marling’s oft-cryptic lyrical swoons create little illusion as to the record’s intended message.
In celebrating the freedom and empowerment of women within a political climate where a reminder of the gender’s virtues is as timely as ever, Laura Marling embarks on a highly straightforward statement in comparison to previous works.
Following up 2015’s self-produced Short Movie, Marling places Conor Oberst producer Blake Mills at the helm this time around with the aim of rebuking Virgil’s sentiments with a woman’s take on life as a female within a delicately crafted framework of melodic textural scoring backing Marling’s captivating emotional perception.
Despite her obvious roots in Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell inspired troubadour-folk, opening track Soothing instantly recalls the subtle compositional qualities of Massive Attack. Inclusive of a haunting, rasping vocal take, steadily pulsing bassline, and call-and-response drum beats, Portishead’s equally disconcerting Humming is channelled alongside a sensual tale of parallel desire and discord, with the protagonist ultimately fighting back primal urges in exclaiming, “My lips aren’t moving, my God is brooding”.
The Valley saunters through previously charted territory with elegant amplification as Marling ponders the life of an estranged friend, reflecting on the trials of the female psyche with sobering lines as the track echoes the astute philosophical musings of Leonard Cohen at his finest, creating a refreshing alternative to notions of human existence through the eyes of the female form, complete with fitting harmony accompaniment and spritely acoustic guitar picking.
Stylistic variation breathes effortlessly throughout, as highlighted on the country-tinged, conversational tone of Wild Fire, harbouring a pensive yet combative observation at the closing stages of a relationship with a female, featuring near comical put-downs such as, “You always say you love me most when I don’t know I’m being seen, well, maybe one day when God takes me away I’ll understand what the f**k that means”.
Musings on relationship insecurity represents a continued theme on the sultry sixties-era blues number Don’t Pass Me By, where reverberating guitar complements lingering rhyming couplets on what could easily be the theme song of a James Bond movie such is its understated orchestral strength.
The genre sifting rarely lets up even as the conclusion of the record approaches, with the structure variation found on Wild Once particularly experimental in starting with a mash up of soaring vocals and biblical references in tandem with swift monologue breakdowns not too dissimilar to some of Jarvis Cocker’s more left-field output, before lurching into a reflective folk tale of youthful independence and abandon.
While the vast majority of the record steers clear of vitriol towards the opposite sex, Nouel addresses some of Marling’s fundamental issues with Virgil’s statement of women by intelligently flipping the damning phrase on its head and proclaiming that woman in art are traditionally depicted as the muse as opposed to the artist. The electric guitar chimes and rapid vocal delivery of Nothing, Not Nearly concludes the record in fittingly striking fashion with an ode to the power of love.
The complexity of ideas on this record, in terms of individuality and artistic expression, are relatable on both sides of the ‘gender fence’. Marling adeptly navigates these subjects with compelling beauty and significance, with the album acting less like a clarion call to female uprising and more a stark and composed analysis of what it means to be truly individual.
In a world which currently wants to build more fences both physically and metaphorically as opposed to breaking them down, this is something for which Marling must surely be applauded.
