I don't think Laura Marling is capable of making a bad record. Since releasing her debut album as a teenager in 2008, she's consistently shown remarkable maturity and nuance in her songwriting. While 2010's I Speak Because I Can will always be closest to my heart, it's hard to find much fault in any of her releases, really. Short Movie is no exception. While it contains both the lush '70s singer-songwriter-styled folk-pop and the atmospheric, slow-burning ballads that have long characterized her music, Short Movie also presents Marling at her most aggressive. It has teeth - sharp, gleaming, and fierce - that her previous work has only hinted at, making it a refreshing change of pace and another worthy addition to her impressive oeuvre.

Long-time fans will find a familiar warmth in the smooth acoustics, honeyed vocals, and sun-warmed atmosphere of tracks like "Divine" and "How Can I," and the dark interplay of richly-strummed guitar with foreboding layers of reverb and white noise places "Warrior" and "Howl" firmly alongside Marling's strongest simmering ballads. With every release, her delivery becomes ever more throaty and world-weary, and her soul-searching lyrics match their intensity perfectly: "I'm just a horse with no name/Somewhere there's other beasts who think the same." As flawlessly as Marling executes these styles, an entire album's worth of such subtlety runs the risk of becoming predictable and bland. On "Divine," she sings insistently, "I'm taking more risks now/I'm stepping out of line/I put up my fists now/Until I get what's mine," and this isn't just sentiment or metaphor: it's a statement of intent that the rest of the album aims to prove.

Early standouts "False Hope" and "I Feel Your Love" introduce the turn toward more driving and aggressive rock that emphasizes electric instrumentation, occasionally supplemented by soaring string arrangements. The relentless pace demands versatility from Marling's voice and it delivers, swinging effortlessly from a ringing soprano to a gritty snarl as she throws out accusatory one-liners ("An electric fence/A silent defense/It's who you are"). To avoid being too one-dimensional, Marling's rock influences are all over the map, from the bluesy "Don't Let Me Bring You Down" ("Do I look like I'm fucking around?" she asks bitterly in the chorus before announcing sarcastically, "I'm a woman now, can you believe?") to the '90s alt-rock jangle of the shouty, breathless "Gurdjieff's Daughter." It all boils over on the title track where, over a noisy wall of groaning violin, robust cello and percussive guitar, Marling snarls, "It's a short fucking movie, man/I know/I will try and take it slow."

More than anything, Short Movie is all about finding one's voice and then finding the strength to use it and speak up for oneself. Where her lyrics have often seemed centered around mythological or otherwise fictional characters in the past, this feels like Marling's most personal album yet, a first-person account of confidence and power gained, against all odds. It also speaks of limitless potential, which is particularly exciting for an artist five albums deep into her career.