From a philosophical point of view, you could say that there is a safe way and a risky way to get to your destination in life and Marc O’Reilly has clearly opted for the safe route with his debut album “My Friend Marx”.
That’s not to say that this is a bad album – for it isn’t – but I have to wonder why anyone would take such a conservative approach when it would have been altogether more logical to try and stand out from the crowd. The songs on the album are OK even if they generally drag on past their welcome and, while Mr O’Reilly is a capable musician, he never goes any further than the sincerest form of flattery.
I was actually surprised that to find out that Mr O’Reilly actually hails from Ireland. I would have put money on him being Canadian as they grow this sort of earnest singer songwriter over there.