2020 had seen the release of the promising EP 'The Deep End' by the Finnish band 'Lighthouse Sparrows' and it is now an LP that will be released in early 2022, called 'Aerials'. The trio 'Sami Sarhamaa', 'Olli Huhtanen' and 'Miri Miettinen' are still there and, for the backing vocals, the 'Trio Tingo' has been replaced by 'Ella Eriksson'. On the menu of this opus, there are 11 compositions for 65 minutes of listening in which we are taken on a very beautiful progressive, symphonic, atmospheric and melodic journey with a good balance between the sung parts and the instrumental sections.
The short instrumental 'Bates' opens the album in a powerful and epic atmosphere with a marked rhythm and omnipresent keyboards, then, 'Assimilate', much more atmospheric, brings a hovering side with a catchy melody and the continuation continues in this way with 'Moodswings', with a slow tempo in a 'Floydian' atmosphere giving a remarkable feeling of quiet strength in which one abandons oneself to the rhythm of the music. Follows 'Kibitzer' with more catchy and direct sung parts which flirt with pop and with instrumental sections bringing the progressive side with a remarkable final guitar solo, then, 'No Still Moment', with its 8 minutes, offers us a beautiful moment of progressive with a title make of several drawers which follow one another and with very beautiful sung and instrumental parts including this central section with very beautiful choirs. 'Elephant', which follows and which was the subject of a single in 2021 (see video above), is a magnificent ballad sublimated by a moving vocal interpretation of 'Olli Huhtanen', then, 'Like Blood', after a muscular introduction, develops a neo-progressive rock which can approach certain titles of 'RPWL' thanks to remarkable alternations of intensities bringing a very particular emotion between strong and weak moments, and we find the same style with the following composition 'Itinerant', thanks in particular to aerial keyboards. We continue our beautiful journey with 'Safe and Sound' which was the first single in 2021 (see the video here) and which is still a very beautiful moment of serenity with the vocal contribution of 'Ella Eriksson' that we would like to hear even more often because the singing combined with the male duo and Ella is simply sublime. The album ends with, first of all, the instrumental 'Percolator', a title highlighting the sounds of vintage keyboards that can in some places recall 'Emerson, Lake & Palmer', then the long development 'Youth', which is certainly the most sought after and the most psychedelic of the set and which highlights soaring and vaporous sounds bringing us back to the first period of 'Pink Floyd'.
In summary, the Finns of 'Lighthouse Sparrows' release a remarkable first studio recording both in terms of compositions and production and if you like bands like 'RPWL' or 'Airbag' or even ou encore 'Mystery', you should like 'Aerials' which should be one of the major atmospheric progressive albums of 2022... | |
