Treasury of Music #14: Beardfish

I got to know Beardfish in late 2008 through my brother who had both volumes of their then recent Sleeping In Traffic albums, which are to this day still my favourite albums of this band that sadly called it quits only last month after having released eight albums in 15 years. I took that as an incentive to listen to their complete catalogue again and finally get to know their first two albums that I didn’t know in full.
Over the years I have seen Beardfish live at least six times, as opening act for bands like Pain of Salvation, Flying Colors, Spock’s Beard, or the Neal Morse Band and for the last time at the great Night of the Prog festival at the Loreley last year. It was always great fun to see them live and bassist Robert Hansen gliding barefooted all over the stage was always a sight to behold.
To me the classic Beardfish sound is that of the Sleeping In Traffic albums and it is not really comparable to most other bands. Although echolyn have some parallels in their songwriting and to my ears Gentle Giant’s songwriting approach was a big inspiration. Later albums got gradually darker and heavier and I also noticed some King Crimson influences here and there.

I tried to find a nice mixture of everything for my playlist while only barely exceeding the two hour mark:

• Roulette
• Without Saying Anything
• And The Stone Said: If I Could Speak
• Comfort Zone
• Into The Night
• Destined Solitaire
• Note
• The Hunter
• Dark Poet
• Voluntary Slavery
• Year Of The Knife
• A Love Story
• The Ungodly Slob