Once I Was an Eagle

Laura Marling - Once I Was an Eagle
Critic Score
Based on 40 reviews
2013 Ratings: #10 / 1115
Year End Rank: #35
User Score
Based on 397 ratings
2013 Rank: #48
Liked by 44 people
May 27, 2013 / Release Date
LP / Format
Virgin / Label
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
The Independent

Once I Was an Eagle is a work that demands to be taken as a whole, another reminder of the peculiar power of the album form, despite frequent premature declarations of its redundancy.

100
The Telegraph

Marling is never likely to be a fixture of the pop charts. But Once I Was An Eagle is a masterpiece, and, at 23, she’s still only getting started.

100
Record Collector

Once I Was An Eagle represents a bold, adventurous step forward that’s resulted in her most fulfilling work yet.

91
A.V. Club

Whether or not Marling’s huffy folk music is your brand of gin, it’s hard to deny the markings of such a raw talent. Eagle is a master class in creation.

91
Pretty Much Amazing

Once I Was an Eagle is a singular achievement: a haunting record, peopled with aural ghosts that come gradually crawling from out of the grooves.

90
Uncut

Rarely since the Laurel Canyon heyday of CSNY, Jackson Browne et al has the confessional mode been quite so unashamedly mined for artistic ore.

90
Clash
Without doubt, this is one of the folk albums of the year.
90
Slant Magazine

For its cohesive tone and the ease with which it plumbs the darkest recesses of Marling's consciousness, Once I Was an Eagle is close to a masterpiece, a heavenly composition with just enough hell to keep things from feeling too familiar.

90
American Songwriter
Both as a songwriter and as a performer, Laura Marling has never soared so majestically.
90
DIY

On ‘Once I Was An Eagle’, though, Marling proves that while she might remind people of Joni Mitchell, John Mayall, or anyone else you can shake an acoustic guitar at, she is not simply an imitative by-product. 

90
The Fly

It’s the longest and best Laura Marling record yet: a 63-minute modern folk opus that should earn the Hampshire lass her third Mercury Prize nomination.

90
No Ripcord

There are two primary things that make Once I Was An Eagle take flight: Lyrics and progression, which together make the album intelligent, confident, and, perhaps most importantly, recursive. 

90
NME

'Once I Was An Eagle' is an intense, internal record with a clear emotional arc. The portrait it paints of the author is not always flattering, but the truth rarely is.

90
PopMatters

Once I Was an Eagle is a bold work that, in theory, shouldn’t work—a lengthy, near-concept album about emotional availability—but Marling makes it into one of the year’s essential releases.

90
musicOMH

Sandblown and enigmatic, these are English folk songs that at times sound as if they’ve been established in the canon for umpteen years, yet the filter of tradition yields strangely enigmatic results; songs that are readily self-aware, but also conjure something unknown.

85
The 405

Marling is at a peak of confidence, and it wouldn't be too remiss of me to suggest that Once I Was An Eagle is her best album yet; better individual songs may lie elsewhere, but her new record's cohesive nature makes it much more of an adventure than what came before. 

85
Paste

Once I Was An Eagle is a remarkable feat of personal reflection that reveals more of its intricacies with every listen. 

85
The Line of Best Fit

Marling has delivered Once I Was an Eagle with a charisma lacking in most of her peers, and the poise of a far older hand. She’s no longer one of the country’s most exciting prospects; she’s one of its greatest songwriters.

81
Pitchfork

It’s expansive and ambitious, and divorced of all the tweedy preening and aw-shucks raggediness the idea of “folk” has accumulated in recent years. It's dark, it’s angry, it’s even sexy, in a sly, subtle way.

80
The Observer
Everything just gets better and better with Marling.
80
The Arts Desk

Once I Was an Eagle is a soft, sprawling thing; particularly across its opening four-track run.

80
Q Magazine

Once I Was An Eagle is entirely Laura Marling's trip--beautiful, heartfelt, searching, sublime, and thrillingly open-ended.

80
Northern Transmissions
Majestically simplistic, you can’t help but watch Marling soar like the predatory bird her album title possesses.
80
The Irish Times
Comparisons with the greats – Mitchell, King et al – still shimmer in the ether, but they are becoming ever less pronounced.
80
Evening Standard
Sexy, fearless, feisty — it’s Laura Marling, Jim, but not as we know her.
80
Mojo
As well executed as the latter half is, it can feel a mite unsatisfying compared to the stripped-down stuff that sits at the top of the album.
80
Exclaim!
While her peers may be filling arenas with banjo anthems, Marling has long freed herself from that particular pigeonhole and presents another collection of songs that showcases her astounding talent.
80
The Guardian
There are a couple of moments where she still feels like the sum total of a very tasteful record collection, where she struggles to make herself heard over the echoes of Joni Mitchell and Dylan's thin wild mercury sound. More often, though, she cuts through her influences, and rings out loud and clear; when she does, it's a very diverting sound indeed.
80
Beats Per Minute

Eagle is definitely Marling’s most considered work, and most of that comes simply from the fact she’s stripped away a lot of the decoration, and yet ultimately it feels easy for her, if not a little predictable.

80
Consequence of Sound

On her fourth release, Once I Was an Eagle, Marling physically and metaphorically sheds any notions of fragility with songs that are captivating and complex.

80
SPIN

Marling has always trafficked in understated elegance, but she's firmly in attack mode here. Mostly against herself.

75
Under the Radar

Once I Was An Eagle is Marling's most fully-realized release yet, a quasi-conceptual record that traces a path from naivety through harsh experience and eventually to consequent enlightenment.

74
Sputnikmusic

Marling fares well throughout the release because she’s out in the open-- no longer hidden behind walls of varying sound.

70
God Is in the TV
There’s a toughness here, and yet a dreaminess at the same time. Proof that intensity does not mean that you have to put the amps up to 11.
70
Rolling Stone
Her voice is the headliner: Miked so close you can smell the cigarettes on her breath, it's sultry, wise, rueful and unapologetic, connecting a 1960s singer-songwriter tradition to the ache of the now.
70
The Needle Drop

Laura Marlin's Once I Was An Eagle shows the British singer-songwriter moving even further away from her folk pop roots, and embracing a moodier sound. Not only that, but Laura's battles with love seem to take center stage as this album's prime subject matter.

70
AllMusic

Marling is an old soul through and through, and her remarkably timeless voice, idiosyncratic lyrics, and increasingly impressive guitar chops help to elevate the album's less immediate moments

70
Drowned in Sound

To create something so ambitious and interesting almost single-handedly, and to already sound ready to head off to the next level, would give anyone a massive boost of self-confidence and drive to see what else they could achieve.

depechemode4lif
91

Damn Laura really hitting it out of the park with this one ngl. The album has an impeccable flow, excellent vibe throughout and is true to the traditions of folk albums yet still offers a modern freshness. Lyrically, and with her phrasing, Marling is operating at full force here. Phenominal album

JohnLouisHoward
91

magnificent.

73

Nice

CompassCharlata
100

Somewhere in my top 10 albums of all time.

73

Nice

DanielRLA12
91

joni mitchell's daughter

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Added on: March 8, 2013