#beardfish

Roie Avin: Essential Modern Progressive Rock Albums: Images and Words Behind Prog's Most Celebrated Albums 1990-2016 (2018)

As the editor of The Prog Report website (and a longtime friend and music biz colleague), Roie Avin is one of this planet's preeminent experts about this often misunderstood, sometimes reviled, but obviously enduring branch of rock 'n' roll's family tree.

Punk rock tried its damndest to kill progressive rock in the late 1970s, but it frankly never stood a chance and so-called "dinosaurs" like Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, and Pink Floyd kept right on selling millions of records long after their assailants had gone extinct themselves or sold out to new wave.

And then, after a relatively quiet 1980s (emphasis on "relative" since the decade spawned the mighty Marillion and many other genre standard bearers featured here), progressive rock grew ever more ambitious and expansive in the decades that followed.

Hence this period frequently being referred to as the 'Third Wave.'

Roie's book makes that abundantly obvious with a chronological survey of over 50 LPs, each of which receives a dedicated chapter full of historical information, band interviews and photos, and the author's own well-informed opinions about each title.

From Queensrÿche's multi-platinum-selling Empire to Opeth's twelfth opus, Sorceress (both obviously pictured above), Roie proves that prog never stopped, uh, progressing in the capable hands of major names like Dream Theater, Tool, Fates Warning, Spock's Beard, Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, and Devin Townsend.

What's more, even a somewhat knowledgeable music fan like me learned a lot about unfamiliar albums by the likes of Scale the Summit, Beardfish, The Flower Kings, The Tangent, Periphery, Haken, Enchant, Riverside, and Karnivool.

If anything, Roie seldom ventures into the extreme metal woods where countless Cookie Monsters beyond Opeth tread, but he had to draw the line somewhere, or else no coffee table would be large enough to support the resulting Encyclopedia Progtannica.

And I was thrilled to see Cynic's incomparable Focus LP included, alongside other personal favorites like Anathema, Ayeron, King's X, Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, and, of course, Marillion.

So here's to you, Roie!

May you carry on sailing these seas of cheese (it's at least guaranteed to be gourmet cheese) and remain safe aboard all of those crazy prog rock cruises.

Featured Records:

Queensrÿche: Empire (1990)

Dream Theater: Images and Words (1992)

King's X: Faith Hope Love (1990)

Opeth: Sorceress (2016)

Cynic: Focus (1993)

May 21:

Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Down On The Upside, Soundgarden's fifth album, and last from the original go-round,.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of Keystudio, Yes' compilation album of material culled from both Keys to Ascension albums.

On the 21st of May, 2004, nü-metal aggregate Slipknot let loose unto a world that may or may not have been ready for it Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses, their third album.

And,

For A Song is a meandering diatribe about odd albums I've thrifted- most of the time.

this is what nine years apart sounds like

I won't lie, I didn't thrift this one. It's an aberration in the pattern of these posts. I don't care, because I love Beardfish. This album came out days after I broke my hip and damn near to a decade since they gave their farewells back in 2015. This time, it's personal.

Songs for Beating Hearts carries warmer tones and absolutely none of the parables of the group's earlier albums- it's reminiscent of a Yes album in warmth and aplomb. The album art is its strongest allusion to the band's past, looking most like Destined Solitaire (which, as memory serves, was one of the group's more difficult albums). None of its melodies are especially daring, or dour- the strife in this album comes quietly in reflection of all the ways people change in long spans apart.

It's an album for long-time listeners, for the band itself, for young adults who turned the corner of adulthood with Sleeping in Traffic ringing through their ears. It's familiar, but different- confident, but a little guarded, warm, but distant. It measures the yawning leap of a decade apart, since it's no longer familiar enough to tell the stories between.

It's a reunion album that refuses to allude directly to the band's past together. No callbacks, no remember-whens, just acknowledgment that the river of time has taken everyone elsewhere, and most critically, that despite the time and the distance, that per Torrential Downpour, you're seen, you're heard, and you're loved- always. It's a message that that we'd all like to relay to the friends and lovers we've shed, fumbled, lost, and perhaps found again across the years.

It's Beardfish, but it's not. It's the friend you haven't seen for a decade. It's the warm front you wear, the hug you return, it's the thousand things you might like to say but no longer have the time or intimacy to unpack. Life has changed, you're all different people now, and the album won't pretend it'll go back to the way it was. It can't. That's a lifetime ago. That's a hundred happy memories and a dozen traumas and three moves and four jobs and five partners and a few hospital visits ago. How do you capture that?

Songs for Beating Hearts says, quite simply- you don't. You've changed. The world has changed you and everyone involved in your reunion. You can't go back. The time to tell stories about falling off balconies or the office knob that found themselves or the tenderness of one's comfort zones is past, and you're no longer close enough with each other to open up about them. And so much has changed, but most importantly, you're seen, you're heard, and you're loved. Welcome back, it's wonderful to see you again.

Would I recommend the album? Not before any of their prior works, no, I'm going to point you to Destined Solitaire and Sleeping In Traffic Part 1 and maybe Mammoth instead. But as a longtime fan that turned the corner of adulthood in their wake, it's a sweet melancholy to hear them again, to find closure. My heart is at peace.