Album review: Laura Marling – Short Movie

Short Movie by Laura Marling.

Short Movie

Laura Marling

(Ribbon Music)

Four stars

"Is it still OK that I don't know how to be alone?" the British singer-songwriter Laura Marling asks in the opening lines of the terse False Hope. It's the second, and by far the most energetic, track of this contemplative new album, titled Short Movie. Where her previous release, 2013's Once I Was An Eagle, found the ridiculously talented 25-year-old speaking about the claustrophobia surrounding a spiralling relationship, Short Movie has her taking a breather as she surveys life from a distance. Written during her solo stint in Los Angeles, the sparse and delicate album is filled with the kind of observations and insights that loneliness reveals. Warrior sounds intentionally aimless – Marling's vocals simply hover over her gently plucked acoustic guitar as she laments "I'm just a horse with no name". In the minimal roots of Walk Alone, her glassy vocals crack with anger as she attempts to reconcile her self-imposed exile with the longing for connection: "I was born to love/I was put upon this Earth/I was doing fine without it/Now I can't walk alone." Resolution comes in the second-last song, the title track. Tired of beating herself up, Marling concedes that life is a "short [expletive] movie, man. I will try to take it slow."