Beardfish, the legendary Swedish prog rock band, formed in 2001, makes a wonderful comeback with their ninth album called Songs For Beating Hearts. Beardfish, still consisting of: Rikard Sjoblom (vocals, keys), David Zackrisson (guitars), Robert Hansen (bass guitar) and Magnus Ostgren (drums) always used influences from notorious prog bands like Yes, Spock's Beard and Gentle Giant, but they always had their own personal style and the Swedish quartet always was praised for their virtuosic musicianship indeed. Songs For Beating Hearts is a true diverse and challenging album, featuring seven tracks of which Out In The Open is the absolute stand out song. This prog rock epic, clocking in at over twenty minutes, is divided in five parts and it is a 100% pure Beardfish musical rollercoaster, with amazing melodies, an emotional stunning guitar solo, a keyboard solo which could be from the seventies, dramatic vocals from Sjoblom and a beautiful instrumental last part - Around The Bend - which ends this awesome epic in a more than excellent way. Follow up Beating Hearts is again - 11 minutes - a longer track and here the guitar and keyboards definitely remind me of King Crimson, while the song begins and ends with a string quartet, quite extraordinary indeed. Next up is the lead single called In The Autumn, a love song, being a vocal duet between Sjoblom and guest vocalist Amanda Ortenhag and this one is rather catchy and shows characteristics of Led Zeppelin... Finally, Beardfish treats us to another gem, the eight minute Torrential Downpour, another emotional song about loss and love as this track deals with the death of Sjobloms father and musically especially the guitar motifs and the emotional vocals highlight this beautiful song. So, Beardfish's new album is a more than excellent prog rock album with lots of variety and most of all technical musicianship. Songs For Beating Hearts is an album that will certainly appeal to long time old Beardfish fans, but it will definitely attract some new fans as well and it will end up high in my top ten album list of 2024!! **** Martien Koolen (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
