According to The Guardian it was an "electively [sic] solitary time in which she remembers a lot of sitting in cafés, newspaper crosswords and scrawling in notebooks before any songs took shape.

"The unconvincing estuary English is long gone, replaced by a womanly panoply of burrs, sighs and incantatory dips that certainly make sense of past Joni Mitchell comparisons but in truth don't adhere to any single accent", Keith Cameron writes.

[14] The New Musical Express reviewer also marks changes in the singer's style: "Gone is Marling's pure and strident alto voice, the sturdy re-telling of the folk-pop handbook and any suspicion that she fitted seamlessly into the heart sore singer-songwriter tradition.".

"This real-life fairytale is made up of myriad difficult home truths but Marling's hejira, her flight to freedom, makes for absolutely compelling listening", Priya Elan concludes.

[12] Speaking of possible influences, Joshua Love of Pitchfork mentions (apart from Joni Mitchell) Fairport Convention, Leonard Cohen, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, and PJ Harvey.

"…She wears her furrowed brow with a grace and stoic humour well in advance of her nu-folk peers; combining the sort of winking stoicism that was once the preserve of commie-sympathising, flinty-faced menfolk with the supple, jazzy tones of idol Joni Mitchell", writes Alex Denney of the BBC, referring to "The Beast" as a "rain-lashed monster of a tune" and calling another song, "Night After Night", a "classic, folksy pick that allows Marling's voice to revel in its own beauty".

[19] According to Telegraphs Helen Brown, "Like Mitchell, Marling started out as part of a 'new folk' scene... but has increasingly struck out alone into a starker, stranger and more jazz-inflected musical landscape.