Lighthouse Sparrows hail from Finland, and were formed by Sami Sarhamaa (guitars, bass, voices) and Olli Huhtanen (voices, keyboards). They have been going for three years, but, like so much in our world, the release of this debut album was derailed by a crafty lurgy virus.

On the album, they are joined by Miri Miettinen on drums and Ella Eriksson (Huhtanen’s daughter) on backing vocals.

On their Bandcamp page, they describe themselves as “modern prog”, but with roots in the rock and artful pop of the past. If you have a spare ten minutes, you might wish to look at a potted history of this project at https://sarhamaa.com/wp/?page_id=920

I find this an enjoyable album, if a little dark.

Bates starts us off. This is an instrumental piece almost intended, I feel, as a statement of intent. It features some swirling keyboards with bass and drums forming an intense rhythm section. The guitar riffs are just the lighter side of heavy, and this is a strong opening.

Assimilate has an edgy feel to it at the start, with choppy notes introducing a sense of foreboding before the first voice kicks in. The guitar chords are delightfully evocative and the track itself is thoughtful talking of voices which echo from the past. Some four minutes in, the music starts to expand from its bare bones and certainly has a lighter and sunnier feel to it. What is reality? What is a state of mind? This is precisely the type of intelligent music which prompts thinking that I have always appreciated.

Moodswings opens with a distinctly Floyd-like set of deep chords, and this mood continues following the close of the first set of lyrics before once again you get that deeply satisfying sense of expansion as the vocals soar and a synth solo kicks in. As the title of the track implies, there are swings of tempo and feel in this piece, at once distressing, at others expansive, but never anything less than interesting. The final half a minute is beautiful in its introspective keyboards.

The next track is Kibitzer. The word itself is a Yiddish one for spectator, and one who usually offers unwelcome advice. The vocals speak of this with some funny relish, describing the subject sitting behind you and the one who ties the knot in the rope and gives it a gentle push, the one who examines all in the smallest detail. The accompanying music is art rock at its core, with samples and noises from the keys laid over a pulsing rhythm. The final minute sees another change in mood and tempo, with a menacing piano and guitar riff competing for attention. This is the first time on the album we hear the duo really rocking out. A very enjoyable track.

No Still Moment is one of two 8+ minute tracks. A mechanical, AI-induced, marching intro gives way to a bassline beneath the opening vocals again speaking of a tenseness at what is to follow, and an introspective synth solo leads to a distorted guitar solo before the mechanical march returns accompanied then by a long passage of distorted guitar and lilting synths leading us into a quite glorious vocal passage of chants over the pulse below before the main sense of the track returns. This is deliberately a dystopian track, and there is a sense of futility in the lyrics and music, and it most certainly is not the type of track you would put on at a dinner party attended by your polite society friends, but it is the type of track you would play to likeminded progressive music fans eager to try something new and certainly challenging.

Elephant instantly lightens the mood musically, but lyrically the words speak of a vacuum of ideas, and it being better to run, not looking back, and ignore what went on before. Two and a half minutes in there is some deft use of simple piano notes and lightly coloured vocal effects in harmony with the lead protagonist. The closing section is expansive with some more thoughtful keys leading the rhythm below.

Like Blood has a pulsating vocal effect “looks like blood” accompanying the main riff, and as the song develops, we get more of that dystopia feel before a mournful synth very reminiscent of Wish You Were Here kicks in. If you think of a cross musically between classic Floyd and more recent Radiohead, you might have an idea of where this goes. Once again, though, it is most certainly not an overly cheery number, and is perhaps a little bit too mechanical for my taste.

Itinerant is my favourite track on the album. The music underlying the vocals is sparse, including some interesting drum patterns. When the main body of the piece kicks in at two minutes, there are some delicate moments in amongst the more expansive keys and vocals in a track I believe speaks to us of the mortality at the heart of humanity. The final minute features a most impressive guitar solo.

Safe and Sound is a single I first heard on YouTube before examining the album, and features Ella sharing the main vocal duties. Quite definitely referencing the pandemic, lockdown, and the end of all that was familiar, the mood swings between plaintive and, in the more expansive segments, genuine anger. I especially enjoy the light touch three minutes in which is very deceptive, because what follows is far darker with some keys and voices adding to a maelstrom of emotions. The final minute returns to the initial theme, but with a very impressive chorus of noise taking us to the conclusion of a very good piece of music, and yet another track which proves that even though the pandemic itself has had major ramifications for us, in cultural terms it was a source of deep inspiration to many intelligent rock artists.

Percolator is a very good track, an instrumental which lifts the spirits compared to much of what preceded it. It has some fine guitar bursts and an underlying mood which is very trancey. Just over four minutes in, we get a fine change of mood and tempo with a dreamy, blues-inspired guitar solo before the Wright inspired keyboard closes us off.

The final track is the longest on the album. Youth features Greta Thunberg and is, of course, an invective against the politicians who continue to play economic and power games in the face of overwhelming evidence that we need to change things quickly if we are to avert a disaster. There are some more trancey effects coming in and the voices are artificially expanded. When the pure voice comes in, the lyrics are damning against the “sins of our fathers”, and the keys accompanying this are deliberately menacing. Seven minutes in, we once again expand the whole mood and music, and the voices above the music are powerful.

I like this album. The band are clearly strongly influenced by Pink Floyd, but there is an originality to it which appeals. It is not a light-hearted affair and ruminates on some major social and, I dare say, personal issues and problems, and the music, especially the engineered parts which recreate machinery, reflect this mood very well.

I think that many of you will find something to enjoy in this album, and you can hear it on their Bandcamp page at https://lighthousesparrows.bandcamp.com/album/aerials I, for one, will keep my ears out for news of any further works, because I think that there is a lot more to come from this duo.