Reunited… and it feels so good.

When Beardfish called it a day in 2016, no one, least of all the band themselves, were expecting a reunion. Within the space of a decade, though, they’re back with their long-awaited ninth album, Songs For Beating Hearts, and what an album it is! Frontman Rikard Sjöblom talks about the group’s secret writing sessions and the enduring friendship that made the impossible inevitable.

Words: Dom Lawson

Images: Alexander Lindstrom

“We started by playing an old song, Without Saying Anything, from Mammoth, and it was basically a case of all the hairs standing up on your arm, that kind of feeling. I felt straight away that we were back and it felt like no time had passed.”

The seeds for the great Beardfish reunion were sown in 2020. One of Sweden’s best-loved prog bands, they stumbled to an unsatisfying halt in 2016, less than a year after the release of their acclaimed eighth album, +4626-Comfortzone. Internal arguments had put paid to the chemistry that had propelled the quartet for 15 years, and the only conceivable option was to call it a day. But music has a habit of hijacking the emotions. Four years after going their separate ways, temperatures had cooled and friendships had been rekindled. It would not be long before the urge to make music again would overwhelm them. In 2021, Beardfish were back in a rehearsal space, checking to see and hear if the old magic was still there.

“We had been hanging out a little bit. Not all four of us in the same room, but we’d been meeting up, listening to records or having a beer,” says frontman Rikard Sjöblom. “But this was the first time all four of us had been in a room, wanting to make music together. That was really cool. We started by playing an old song, Without Saying Anything, from Mammoth, and it was basically a case of all the hairs standing up on your arm, that kind of feeling. I felt straight away that we were back and it felt like no time had passed.”