The new album from Lorkin O'Reilly is called Marriage Material and that seems appropriate given the extraordinarily intimate recordings within its grooves which seem like love letters to listeners. The Scottish-born singer and songwriter favors the kind of material that suggests pioneers like John Martyn, Nick Drake, and Bert Jansch, but his compositions retain an immediacy that is beguiling throughout this Team Love Records release.
A number like "Pelé Pelé", for example, rides in on the gentlest of plucked guitar-figures, with Reilly's vocals nearly whispered over the top of it. Sometimes this stuff recalls early Elliott Smith, or Bon Iver, but Lorkin, thankfully, makes this distinctive enough to make one forget those points of comparison while focusing in on this 2021 release. Unfortunately, the compositions here have a sameness that's sometimes part-and-parcel of this genre. Still, if there had been more songs like "Big Silly Heart" on Marriage Material, my recommendation would have been a much stronger one.
Marriage Material is out on Friday via Team Love Records.
[Photo: Team Love Records / Lorkin O'Reilly]