Alas I Cannot Swim

On her debut, 17-year-old Laura Marling is torn between tradition and cynicism, and makes magic from the gap between the two. She’s a sharp interpreter of folk tropes, as proven by the gothic “Night Terror” and fiddle-laden “The Captain and the Hourglass”, yet possessed of her own idiosyncratic talents. “Old Stone” and “Failure” are confidently spare, while the glorious chorus of “Ghosts” perfectly juxtaposes romance and realism: “It’s not like I believe in/Everlasting love.”