Introducing: House Lights

New Hampshire’s House Lights offer up a delicious post-hardcore meets alt-metal sound that they describe as “dynamic, nostalgic and purposeful.” The band fuses moody guitars, emotive vocals and raw, honest songwriting in an atmospheric yet powerful metal sound that’s been dragged kicking and screaming out of the 2000s.

The Manchester band was formed out of the ashes of previous band Horns Become Halos. Sam Beachard (vocals) and Mat Laramie (guitar) reformed in 2022 to work on their 2023 album What It Means To Feel, which ended a nine-year hiatus. And they soon recruited Josh Noonan (guitars), Ethan Labbe (bass) and Adam Nickerson (drums) to complete a full band for live shows.

Describing the sound they’ve crafted with the new project, Sam told us: “House Lights’ music is best described as the familiar sound of the 2000s-era Warped Tour with a modern composition.”

Our latest taste of this is Heavenfall, which features brilliantly named fellow New Hampshire rapper Animatronic The Abolisher. It opens up with moody instrumentals and a building synth that blasts into a proper nu-metal opening riff that’s joined by a cool little guitar lick. Rapped vocals take over and give way to Sam’s light vocals, before picking up pace with dual vocals that build up to a powerful, catchy chorus “Can you hear the sound of Heaven coming down? It’s Heavenfall, Join as we return the brethren to the ground, Lay me down, Right now.”

Heavy guitars drop into more rapped vocals over light instrumentals, before kicking into life with engaging vocals that give way to more energetic rap and another big chorus. That drops into big guitar chords under cries of “right now” before a delicious little guitar solo over driving chords teeing up a final blast of the chorus.

On the track, Sam said: “The reception for Heavenfall has been pretty solid, the music video has hit 3.4k views on YouTube in the first few weeks, and we have started to get a bit more traction on streaming platforms, recently hitting 4,000 plays. New listeners should expect driving, impactful riffs, tension-building verses, and a satisfying release when the chorus hits. Heavenfall takes listeners on a roller coaster through the mind of someone grappling with great inner turmoil.”

Heavenfall is the latest in a series of singles over the last couple of years, the most recent of which was the excellent Forget You. It opens up with a big drum roll and big screamed vocals answered by clean retorts. The engaging cleans continue alongside a cool guitar lick, and the pace slows slightly with chugging guitars before the heavy vocals return and feed into a delicious chorus. Heavy guitar chords kick in alongside a vicious scream as the track intensifies, before setting up a final chorus. Check it out in the video here:

And if you like that, then there’s plenty more to dig into. Snake Eyes opens up with a delicious bouncy guitar riff and a fun fusion of screamed and clean vocals, Driver’s License portrays a punkier edge to their sound, and the What It Means To Feel is packed with post-hardcore goodness like the massive Love and Understanding.

The House Lights sound has been inspired by the likes of Alexisonfire, Linkin Park, Tool, Thursday, The Devil Wears Prada and many more. “Our influences are many, but we are driven to write music that connects with people on an emotional and very human level,” Sam explains.

“I write the lyrics from personal experience, the music provides the perfect platform to spread a message of hope, community and togetherness. Our music is very deep and often cinematic, evoking vivid scenes of human struggle against one’s own demons and those of the world we live in.”

There’s plenty more to come from House Lights, including releasing a new EP The Past Is Ours To Leave next Friday (9 May). They’ll be supporting that with EP release shows from May 9 to 11, and will have more releases, videos and shows throughout the rest of the year.

You can follow House Lights on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads and TikTok, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music and YouTube.