I Speak Because I Can is a coming of age, its ten songs imbued with a richness and a ripeness and a sophistication. It is also an album marked by its quintessential Englishness. For all its American instrumentation and its shades of Canadian
musicians, Crosby Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Leonard
Cohen, these songs are no pale interpretation of their folk sounds; rather they are tales of snow-covered England, of blackberries and cold noses, songs that are deeply rooted in place. It is as if in the months since we saw her last, Marling has sought out her own identity, and found herself to be thoroughly English, unapologetically female, and a fully-fledged musician in her own right.