Well now, here’s a bit of a surprise. The last time that I spent a significant time with Swedish progressive outfit Beardfish was with their charming and almost too nice for its own good album, the cheery Mammoth (InsideOut). Beardfish are one of those bands that you can quite easily let slip under your own personal radar, such is their charm and inoffensiveness. That probably sounds like damning with faint praise and I don’t mean that – really, I don’t – but it is certainly the case that you can end up overlooking this most idiosyncratic of bands. Well I did, anyway. My bad.

Well, let’s raise a glass to being wrong. The latest album from the band, the quixotic +4626Comfortzone (InsideOut) is the most interesting and most direct of the band’s releases to date and will have you racking your brains over how you could have ever doubted them, or your own judgement, about what a superlative and hugely inventive progressive band Beardfish are.

As with many progressive artists, Beardfish are unafraid to build diverse and diverting song structures. So far, so very rudimentary but what impresses most on +4626 is not the diversity of the music which covers some very notable and comfortable territory that fans of Yes or Genesis or Marillion would find very welcome. To these ears it’s the intelligent lyricism melded to the musicality that truly impresses. +4626 is an angry record, not that you would guess from your initial listens. Beneath the lovely harmonies and melodious interludes there’s a black self-deprecating humour that pokes right into the heart of small town small mindedness (most notably on the languorous and immersive title track) and a reflective but caustic poke in the eye to the narrow minded attitudes that can infect some of the most tribal of music fans (the jaunty ‘Ode to the Rock n’ Roller’).

The musical, lyrical and emotional heart of this album can be found mid-way through. The fifteen minute plus of ‘If We Must Be Apart’ is where everything comes together. Ostensibly a tale of a broken relationship, what you are actually treated to is an extraordinary psychological journey set to music. It ebbs and flows, builds and drops. It even has a bit of Beelzebub thrown in for good measure. It’s epic and exhausting but in a very satisfactory way.

Comfortzone is a record that fits into that classic mould of revealing more and more with each listen. At one level you could be cynical and accuse the band of covering all their bases, hoping some of their ideas stick. I can’t share that view. Comfortzone is, at its heart, an ambitious and optimistic record and, whilst they (quite rightly) rail against small mindedness, outdated attitudes and misogyny, this is not a downbeat affair. On the contrary, Beardfish leave you feeling optimistic, elated and happy that they are back in your life. This is a handsome, intelligent and beguiling album: hats, off, gentlemen, hats off.

8.0/10

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MAT DAVIES