Michael Christopher "Ike" Reilly (born December 27, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and writer as well as frontman and founder of the rock band the Ike Reilly Assassination. He started his music career with various rock bands near his hometown of Libertyville, Illinois, playing guitar for groups such as The Drovers in the late 1980s. After working for a time in music production, in 2001 he released his debut solo album through Universal Records.
Afterwards, Reilly released several albums with The Ike Reilly Assassination, including the well-received Sparkle in the Finish in 2004, through Rock Ridge Music. He released his eighth album of solo material, Crooked Love, in May 2018. According to Mario Mesquita Borges of Allmusic, "Reilly has followed a trail separate from most of today's singer/songwriters -- unlike other such artists, Reilly prefers the harshness of intrepid rocking riffs, sustained by ingenious melodies and exalting words." David Carr of the New York Times said: "Ike Reilly is a kind of natural resource, mined from the bedrock of music. All the values that make rock important to people—storytelling, melody, rage, laughter—are part and parcel of every Ike Reilly show I have ever seen."
The first song has an Fun Lovin' Criminals vibe, after that it is more straight rock. The songs are ok, not great. The production is not always very balanced and clean, but it captures the drive of the band. If the songs and performance wouldn't have this unbelievable drive and spirit, I would consider this a subpar, middle of the road and uninteresting album. Now it is a nice album to listen to.
This was really very good, for pretty straight ahead rock and roll, in the Petty/Springsteen vein with a rougher edge. Never heard of this person before, and it sounds like that's kind of par for their career, which seems like a real shame. Definitely will look for more.
Tough call on this one, never heard of these guys before and this LP was a tossup between a 2 and a 3. The band seems pulled in way too may directions (bluegrass harmonica? straight 90s alt rock?) for this album to feel cohesive, and the vocals tested my patience more than a few times when they tended whiny and repetitive. There are a few standout tracks, though, where the band gets it together and creates some sold aughts indie like 'Girl In Me.' Going with a 3, despite its flaws I enjoyed a slight majority of tracks on the album, and it's always nice to see a new (to me and the user list) artist highlighted.
Part Springsteen / Tom Petty, part Replacements, conveyed through a canvas weaving all that was popular in the rock idiom during the mid-naughts (a whiff of White-Stripes-adjacent retro-rock flavors here, some post-Eels kitchen-sink flourishes there, streamlined to a fault at times), *Sparkle In The Finish* has some key American-grassroots-type-of-songwriting to it, suggesting Ike Reilly is as authentic a blue-collar performer as one can get.
That being said, the album doesn't fully hold the promise of its title, as ironic as the latter probably is. Some vocal parts could have been handled a notch better (Reilly's timber is probably an acquired taste for quite a few listeners, even if it doesn't bother me right away, personally). The music styles that are harnessed here are varied, in spite of (budget-limited?) production values lacking depth and dynamics on a couple of patches in the tracklist. Some tonal shifts work while others don't. And a cursory listen of other releases by Ike Reilly (either under this "assassination" moniker, or under his own name) suggests that the man can get far more "organic" in his artistry than this.
Don't get me wrong, you still have very good songs here, with some particularly endearing lyrics once in a while. I only wish those songs had been gathered in a bundle that looks less dated or loosely knotted. Nothing to be ashamed of in the long run -- there are even reasons to be proud of the overall result. But nothing essential in my own "book".
3/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums.
8/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3)
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Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465
Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288
Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336
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Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 75
Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 91
Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 180 (including this one)
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Émile, tu trouveras ma dernière réponse sous le *Inside* de Bo Burnham
I've been on a run of albums that I think are fine, but just don't really get into. This was another one. Totally fine, but I listened to it twice, and I still don't know what to say about it. I have a headache, though, so I'm not going to be too harsh here
3/5
I thought Sparkle In The Finish started well but meandered quickly and lacked substance the longer it went on, which was too long. 2/5 but not bad, just a bit boring.
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