The most anticipated album of this year?

Last Friday a lovely little note laid in my mailbox. My package from Amazon had finally arrived! For some strange reason the package was not delivered to either the small convenience store 10 minutes away or any place in the nearby larger city. Instead they chose to deliver it to a small town half an hour away that I never pass in my ordinary life. Post logic for the win?

Anyhow, inside was one of my most anticipated album of 2011 in its glorious special edition box! This is the back of the box. And the front?

 It is folk-queen Laura Marling's A Creature I Don't Know, her third album.

Here next to the special edition of her first album. I realize I lack the special edition of her second... E-bay, here we come!

The box opened. My anticipation for this album was high before I heard any songs, but once the bait-and-switch of Sophia was released it sky-rocketed. The first three minutes, fragile melodies of glass searching their way towards the sky, wouldn't be out-of-place on her previous album. And then the band kicks up a bluesy groove, transforming what was an ethereal song into rollicking country-rock.

The picture disc vinyl is a mirror anamorphosis with the guitar slide doubling as a viewer! Also included is the album, a bonus DVD, a poem and a digital download code. As for the album itself, it seems to be the rare beast that only gets better the further along it plays. The beginning with jazzy tones is a little weak but the last half, starting with Led Zeppelin III-esque The Beast effortlessly showcases every facet of Laura's brilliance.

Day 2: "I tried to be a girl who likes to be used, I'm too good for that, there's a mind under this hat"

Laura Marling just released a 7" on Jack White's Third Man Records. She covers Neil Young's The Needle and The Damage Done and Jackson C. Frank's Blues Run The Game (perhaps more well known covered by Nick Drake or Simon & Garfunkel). Like everything else she does it is striking, haunting and mature well beyond her young years.

Her sophomore album "I Speak Because I Can" is a tour de force of folky singer/songwriter. With Mumford & Sons as her backing band she steps away from the indie-pop feel of the debut towards more traditional folk, putting lyrics and vocals front and center. It's an album for winter, an album for solitude. The songs ebb and flows, the band knows when to play up and when to drop out of the song, leaving the sole light on Laura. It's not an album for instant gratification but one that grows with every note played, every word sung, like Cohen, Dylan and Mitchell. Listen with your headphones on, shut off the world and peek into Laura's.