Lorkin O’Reilly | Marriage Material
(Team Love Records)
If you are in the middle of a breakup, this may be a brutal listen. Scottish transplant Lorkin O’Reilly (now bound for Dublin) bludgeons us with intimate observations of random moments of tenderness; the things your friends say as you shatter and try to let go of love, a raw voice reaching out unafraid to face the vulnerable and heartbreaking. Many of us are craving this connection, this bleeding out of the broken heart, the secrets of the sanguine and personal truths. As the world itself feels diseased, drowning, and burning, we are all spinning and yearning to feel and be touched. If you are grieving and have the means, lock yourself in a cabin surrounded by the frozen moss and melting mud. Lie on the floorboards for a week and listen to Marriage Material. And then listen again. With any luck and faith, hope will replace fear and you may emerge tearless and able to gather yourself enough to put one foot in front of the other, moving towards the better.
Marriage Material is a gift of the emotional frailty of the human condition and its many corrals. The stories are easy to identify with and relate to your own special version of “sad and alone.” The 11 songs satiate the present need for glorious laments from the most sensitive and expressive of musical instruments, the human voice and lyric. Not to be diminished, O’Reilly’s acoustic guitar is likewise accompanied by his Hudson Valley neighbors Kenny Siegal, Matthew Cullen, Will Bryant, Lee Falco, Felix M-B, and Laura Quirk.
This article appears in April 2022.
