Malojian - Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home
by Mark Rowland
published: 10 / 12 / 2018

Label:
Quiet Arch
Format: CD
intro
Superb 60's-influenced pop on fourth album from Malojian, the project of Northern Irish songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Scullion
Malojian is Stephen Scullion, a Northern Irish songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He plays a Byrdsian indie/folk/rock, a modernisation of late-60s psychedelia. 'Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home' is his fourth studio album, recorded in a lighthouse on the island of Rathlin, Northern Ireland. The album starts with the understated, jangly ‘Some New Bones’, followed by the emotive electric piano-driven ‘New Armageddon’, which is in turn followed by the driving, minimalistic ‘Battery’. It sets you up for an album that flits between styles, albeit ones with a certain vintage. 'Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home' gives you americana with Alex Chilton-like melodies (‘Hanging on the Glow’), full on psychedelic pop (‘Ambulance Song’), plaintive piano ballads (‘Beard Song’), jittery electronica (‘Between the Pylons’), and symphonic folk (‘Purity of Your Smile’). These pretty much come one after the other. It’s tricky for a record to change styles so frequently and still hang together. It helps that all of the songs on the album are impeccably written. The worst you can say about Scullion is that he relies a little too much on the influences of major bands of the past, though he is clearly looking to bring more contemporary elements into play. Particularly on the barnstorming title track.
Track Listing:-
1 Some New Bones2 A New Armageddon
3 Battery
4 Hanging on the Glow
5 Damp
6 Broken Light Company (Theme)
7 Ambulance Song
8 Beard Song
9 Between the Pylons
10 Purity of Your Smile
11 Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home
12 Battery (Acoustic)
13 Damp (Demo)
14 Ambulance Song (Live)
15 Beard Song (Live)
16 Between the Pylons (Demo)
17 Purity of Your Smile (Lighthouse)
18 Beardness
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