Beardfish have a history of surprising their fans. When the Swedish band split in 2016, after 15 years and eight albums, it was with a simple, to-the-point sign off: “After some disagreements and various difficulties we have decided to call it quits. This was not an easy choice to make.”
Few people would have had money on them ever reforming – but eight years later they’ve unexpectedly reunited, returning to the fray with the kind of album that sounds like they simply took the summer off, rather than vanished for the best part of a decade.
Thankfully, time hasn’t diminished their magic or diluted their classic influences. Their music still contains flashes of Zappa, Van der Graaf Generator, old-school Genesis and Yes, even a little Focus and classic Kansas.
They’ve also retained the sound of a band who could have fallen out of the sky one day to make albums such 2007’s Sleeping In Traffic Part 1 and its 2008 companion, or 2015’s excellent +4626-Comfortzone, the album that got them wider notice just before they made the decision to disappear.
Rikard Sjöblom returns from his ongoing stint in Big Big Train to remind people he can sing brilliantly as well
Songs For Beating Hearts picks up where the latter left off. It’s centred around the second track, the sprawling Out In The Open – a 25-minute, five-part epic, which is as ambitious as it is unhinged. This suite begins with Overture, which sits halfway between Rick Wakeman and Hemispheres-era Rush.
There’s some beautiful classical guitar in the mix, as Rikard Sjöblom – returning here from his ongoing stint in Big Big Train to remind people he can sing brilliantly as well, which hardly seems fair – and fellow six-stringer and co-founder David Zackrisson trade undulating licks on Hopes And Dreams. When that’s done, they crash through the organ-driven Around The Bend section, which lingers like the frayed ends of a Pink Floyd jam, and that’s no bad thing.
That track is a hard act to follow, but the indomitable, 11-minute Beating Hearts manages just that. Floating in on a bed of strings, before breaking down in a driving marching beat and into the undulating, layered vocal hook, it then progs out completely to a rattling, frenzied crescendo.
Elsewhere, the haunting Torrential Downpour – a song written about the death of Sjöblom’s father – gives Beating Hearts a run for its money as the album’s highlight, while In The Autumn sits at the other end of the spectrum.
With a Jethro Tull-like vibe and raft of harmony vocals built on a tricksy guitar riff that lets rip like the best folk rock, the latter lasts a scant six minutes, but feels like it goes freewheeling on forever. It’s lovely, ambitious stuff and, much like the rest of this album, is the sound of a band completely rejuvenated.
Songs For Beating Hearts is on sale now via InsideOut.
