Band:	Beardfish
Album:	Songs For Beating Hearts
Style:	Progressive rock
Release date:	November 01, 2024
A review by:	RaduP

01. Ecotone
02. Out In The Open, Pt. 1 - Overture
03. Out In The Open, Pt. 2 - Oblivion
04. Out In The Open, Pt. 3 - Hopes And Dreams
05. Out In The Open, Pt. 4 - Oblivion (Reprise)
06. Out In The Open, Pt. 5 - Around The Bend
07. Beating Hearts
08. In The Autumn
09. Ecotone (Reprise)
10. Torrential Downpour
11. Ecotone - Norrsken 1982

A nearly decade long absence for one of Sweden's biggest retro-prog rock bands, has now dutifully ended.

It's somewhat weird to talk about Beardfish on Metal Storm. We do have our fair share of prog rock bands, and I'm the first to admit that the line between what gets added and what doesn't is very very arbitrary, but for the most part the decision should usually down to whether either there being some lineup connection to a more metal band (which Beardfish do not have) or whether any of their albums gets close enough to prog metal (I guess the heaviest the band gets on The Void could border on prog metal). In fairness, a lot of our most baffling inclusions boil down to one thing: someone wanted to review it. And I know because there was at least one case where I was the one who got a profile added for a review. Regardless, it was because of that arbitrary decision (probably, I wasn't there to confirm) that Beardfish got a profile added, which indirectly lead to me finding +4626-COMFORTZONE back in 2015, right when I was at the apex of me using this website to find music, and around the same time I was exploring prog rock beyond its biggest names.

Despite me having listened to the band's entire discography when I was in my biggest prog phase, the band still mostly occupied a specific space as that one retro prog band that I discovered on Metal Storm. Even though my personal relationship with prog rock has lead to me getting quite bored of a lot of the retro-prog sounds (even if that's weird coming from a neo-Opeth defender like myself), somehow the news of a new Beardfish did quite excite me, and I hoped that it could lead me to evaluate my relationship with retro-prog. Having given Songs For Beating Hearts multiple listens, I can confirm that it only reinforces my gripes with retro-prog, but also that it does that sound really well.

First off it's very commendable that Beardfish has had this exact same lineup since 2003, and it's quite obvious that the chemistry between them is immense. A lot of the first side is taken by the "Out In The Open" multi-part epic, and the second side starting with a ten minute song gives plenty of opportunities for the band to flex that very chemistry in longer form songs. On the surface, you can easily encompass the entirety of the sound by just describing it as "retro-prog", complete with all the playful moog worship and vocal harmonies, but for as much as it lacks in prog metal leaning heaviness, there's more of it that leans towards folkier and bluesier sounds, with the warm vocal performance going hand in hand with the instrumental palette that takes folk and symphonic forms at times.

I don't think I would've given Songs For Beating Hearts the same amount of attention if it wasn't for my history with Beardfish, and while it didn't make me want more of this sound, what I got of it here did grow on me.