Album of the Week: Laura Marling, Semper Femina (More Alarming Records) ***

LAURA Marling releases her sixth studio album in nine years on the More Alarming label, a playful twist on her name.

By comparison, its nine songs are not so alarming, even if its initial (mis)conception might have perturbed the roving Hampshire singer-songwriter, whose writing emerged from a "particularly masculine time" in her life.

Marling wrong-footed herself by experimenting with taking the perspective of a man writing about a woman, as "we're somewhat accustomed to seeing women through men's eyes", and she wanted to "take some power over that". Interesting idea, yes, but convoluted too, and you won't be surprised she decided against persisting with what she later termed "a little stumble".

Instead Semper Femina, with its Latin title hewn from a Virgil poem, turned into a record that looks at women through women's eyes, drawing inspiration from her love of poetry, not least the hopeless romantic Rainer Maria Rilke, as well as sculptors and psychoanalysts.

This all sounds rather an academic exercise, doesn't it, but the restless Marling then has to come up with the physical, grounded goods, and if 2015's Short Movie was a response to the new view from her window, on leaving England for Los Angeles, Semper Femina is more cerebral, more a distillation of her smart, piercing thoughts on life, femininity and women's relationships at 27.

You might even call it a concept album if that no longer sets alarm bells ringing. What it does have is intellectual heft, plenty of Marling's somewhat austere wit and sage observations that have marked out her writing since teenage days.

If her thoughts are assured, set in stone, her voice may be an instrument of beauty but it is as unsettled as she is, still drawn to Short Movie's flirtation with America, as much as her refined English roots. This must be by choice to suit each song, but should you find it irritating, you won't be alone.

Marling has switched from Ethan Johns to Blake Mills in the producer's booth after five albums, and if you had hoped for folk-rooted tunes of sharper focus and greater tug, instead they still tend to drift by like summer clouds.

Win the album

The Press has three CD copies of Laura Marling's Semper Femina album to be won, courtesy of More Alarming Records.

Question: What was the title of Laura Marling's 2015 album?

Send your answer, with your name, address and daytime phone number, by email to charles.hutchinson@nqyne.co.uk, marked Marling Competition, by March 24. Usual competition rules apply.