Lighthouse Project “Navigate by Heart” CD

Here's another relatively quick one, since this release seems to get straight to the point. Lighthouse Project contacted me a few weeks ago about their debut CD, "Navigate by Heart" (which was recently released by Combat Rock Industry), and seeing that the band was from Finland I of course immediately grew curious—being the huge fan of the Finnish hardcore scene that I am. While their material sounds quite different than most of what I've heard from Finland in recent years, this is an impressive debut full-length whose brand of powerful melodic hardcore boasts just the right amount of lightly metallic acerbity and catchy surges of octave chords and stuff like that. I have no doubt that this band could be pretty damn popular here in the US if they were on the right label, as fans of everyone from With Honor to Kid Dynamite should probably be able to appreciate this CD, even though it doesn't sound very specifically like either of those bands. With 14 songs in less than a half-hour this one flies by pretty quickly and keeps things short but sweet. There's not a great deal of variety to their approach, which seems to be somewhat common with bands that deal with this niche of melodic hardcore, but that tends to work just fine as there are enough tempo variations to keep things interesting, and the energetic nature of the material carries the songs quite well. There are a couple of darker moments that change things up a bit here and there, and it might not hurt to explore those aspects further in the future. I really dig the screaming vocals, though, which add to the overall feeling of sincerity that I find within the band's music (and that sincerity was also truly evident in the letter they included when sending the CD my way). Give these guys a shot:

Lighthouse Project "I Will Take It As It Comes"
Lighthouse Project "Like a Ghost"
Lighthouse Project "Directors Cut"

And, yes, please do go buy the CD for yourself if you dig the tunes:

@ Interpunk