The Ike Reilly Assassination

Unlike the countless other troubadours who are compared to Dylan (Conor Oberst, love your country stuff, but we're looking at you), Ike Reilly is one of the few singer-songwriters who deserves to hear such lofty praise — mainly because the forty-something musician continues to out-Zim even Dylan himself on album after album. The Chicago father of four/ex-hotel doorman pairs a gravel-torn voice — one that lurches and sways with the freewheeling nonchalance Dylan once perfected — with hardscrabble guitar melodies and rich character sketches about small-town misfits and working-class heroes. Reilly's recent We Belong to the Staggering Evening is a fine addition to his catalog, a blues-soaked, harmonica-and-piano barnstormer on which he and his cohorts (the Assassination) rock like a bar band at the end of the world.