Beardfish (band)
Beardfish is a Swedish progressive rock band. The stylistic starting point of the band is the retro prog, adding more influences from traditional and contemporary styles of music and especially humor as a style element.
History
The band was founded in 2001 by David Zackrisson and songwriter Rikard Sjöblom and completed by school friends Magnus Östgren and Robert Hansen. Kan on the debut album Från en plats du ej se .. ( German: About a place that you can not see ) worked with Stefan Aronsson as the fifth member. The band quickly got the opportunity to gather as a companion Act the recognized bands Paatos and anecdotes of live experience.
With the release of the ambitious second album The Sane Day - it was produced in-house as a double album and contained only English-language lyrics and titles - one aimed at an international market. Not without success: the German label InsideOut Music, for its part, specializes in publications in the field of progressive rock, the band recorded under contract. In cooperation with InsideOut have since the albums Sleeping in Traffic: Part One and Part Two and Destined Solitaire published.
In recent times there has been an increase in joint tours with the Swedish- British supergroup The Tangent. After redeployment in the latter band all four members of Beardfish were between part of the eight-member cast of The Tangent. Beardfish was, however, independent of further and could further fame through appearances collect as at the prestigious NEARfest. With the bankruptcy of SPV, the parent company and sales of the InsideOut label, 2009 saw a setback: Together with Pain of Salvation had to participate in the American Progressive Nation tour with the band Dream Theater and Zappa Plays Zappa cancel.
Style
Sounds and compositional means are based on different forms of progressive rock of the 70s, suggesting the classification of the band as retro prog. Songwriter Sjöblom are Gentle Giant and Frank Zappa as major influences. Furthermore seem particularly Swedish bands like Kaipa and the light, jazzy sound of the Canterbury scene through as influences. An outside influences of progressive rock Elton John, Radiohead, musicals are called.
The albums are crisscrossed with the exception of the debut album and published in 2009 Destined Solitaire, by a loose concept. In the two parts of the Sleeping- in traffic saga about one tries to the figure 24 hours in the life of a human being. Similar to The Tangent these concepts are sometimes provided with an ironic refraction.
The tendency for the connection of theatricality with humor and irony intended primarily the underlying concepts, text, and song titles ( In Real Life There Is No Algebra ), but occasionally found musical equivalents. So contains the 35-minute title track from Sleeping in Traffic: Part Two as an allusion to the Bee Gees - world success Stayin 'Alive.
Discography
- Fran en plats du kan se ej (2003)
- The Sane Day ( 2006)
- Sleeping in Traffic: Part One ( 2007)
- Sleeping in Traffic: Part Two ( 2008)
- Destined Solitaire ( 2009)
- Mammoth (2011)
- The Void (2012 )