Once I Was an Eagle is an album in two acts. Indeed, it needs to be; her longest work yet, it lasts over an hour but by no means drags. We pass through many different styles across the album – raga to folk, with country and a bit of Spanish guitar somewhere in the middle – but only occasionally do we notice the changes. This carefully curated work shows Marling in various sounds that one might never have associated with her before.

The first half starts with four tracks that roll in to one. A quietly ringing guitar riff plays through them, whilst the songs come in and out over it. The influence of her work with the Dharohar Project in 2010 has resurfaced here, with tabla-like sounds and streaming sitar playing in much of this first act. Those that accuse Marling of being too quintessentially English might now find it hard to support this claim. When we first hear her sing in the opening track ‘Take the Night Off’, the familiar soft and grainy clarity of her voice sails out over an excitingly unfamiliar band. Her vocals, whilst displaying a range comparable to that of Joni Mitchell’s, float around with hiccoughing slides here and there. When the guitar riff is eventually left to ring out, we take a new breath as we come to one of the album's already released singles, ‘Master Hunter’. Quoting his ‘It ain’t me babe’, Marling seems to paying a teasing tribute to Dylan, her singing almost mimicking his iconic style at times. As we take another unforeseen turn, the guitar takes on a Hispanic style in what stands out as one of the most wrenching tracks on the album, ‘Little Love Caster’. The anger that has been brooding in these first seven songs finally bursts forth in the barking percussion of ‘Devil’s Resting Place’, the last track in this half.

A cut up string interlude that pulls us to and fro sounds drawn from a French New Wave film soundtrack, and brings us to the second act in this album, where light starts to show. The pre-released ‘Where Can I Go?’ kicks off half way through and we find ourselves listening to a Marling one could actually dance to, unimaginable in the pensive waters of the earlier tracks. It is at this point that those less interested in Marling may feel the songs start sounding dangerously similar, but the use of kit and organ in several tracks, and the introduction of electric guitar, provides a varied and subtly changing tone. The final track, ‘Saved These Words’ is sublime. With the full band coming in, Marling slips up an octave for the chorus, and soon all the best features of the album are soaring in unison, full-speed ahead.

Once I Was an Eagle is vastly different from her other albums, as indeed, they all are from each other. But it is this that means that Marling can produce works at such a rate (four albums in five years). Each album is something new, but a common denominator runs through whatever she chooses to do. She has always maintained that her songs mean whatever the listener takes them to, and suggests that it is not for her (and certainly not for any reviewer) to tell people what her music is about. This seems even truer for this latest album, a work so diverse that one can enter into and come out from it in so many ways.