UNITOPIA: The Garden (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

The Australians of Unitopia are back this fall 2008 with their new production, a double album entitled "The Garden". The excellent "More Than A Dream", released three years ago, had aroused the enthusiasm of progressive atmospheric symphonic fans, so much so that it is now Inside Out label that distributes their music.

From the opening track (One Day), the band shows a great assurance: indeed, it is necessary to dare to start an album with such a piece, in an intimate register - piano and singer. From the start, Mark Trueack's voice imposes itself, clear, precise and ample, with an extremely careful diction.

The listener used to progressive compositions will naturally pay special attention to the next track, an "epic" of more than 22 minutes bearing the title of the album, which is usually significant. And the listener is right: inside this Garden, he makes an unusual journey, always melodic and very varied. The piece is not composed in a "classical" way - introduction, theme, variation, musical bridge and return to the theme - but rather as a collage of atmospheres (the atmospheric side is very present in Unitopia) extremely well articulated despite the variety of the approached genres. We go from the stripped ambient to the jazz trio, from the odd rhythms to the West Indian rhythms, from the swing linked to the percussions to the ample symphonic finale reminding the one of Supper's Ready... A really striking journey in which the guide is always present: everything is very well composed and in place, fruit of a finely writing, forsaking the jam sessions which often act as filler in some progressive productions. A very nice success, for sure!

If Mark Teruack is a Genesis fan (he performed in a cover band, The Genesis Touch), many other influences are present when listening to the record: Californian rock (Angelica), late 19th century piano (Saint-Saens is not far away in So Far Away and Journey's Friend), Alias Eye for the precision of the arrangements (Angelica's intro), Mike And The Mechanics (This Life - Mark's timbre is reminiscent of Paul Carrack's), Saga for the groovy side in Don't Give Up Love, Alan Parsons Project (Inside The Power) or even Steve Hackett (Amelia's Dream) . .. All these influences are well digested since they are totally integrated to the Unitopia universe.

But does this universe exist? When we see the multiplicity of the approached styles, we can ask ourselves the question. Unitopia is as much at ease in pop efficiency as in jazz passages, soulful ambiances (Give And Take), very orchestrated tracks like So Far Away or I Wish I Could Fly, which manage to escape from mawkishness thanks to the care brought to the arrangements, and even when it's a question of hardening the rhythmic with some screamed vocals and death rhythmics intercalated between two soaring passages). Unitopia seems to have succeeded here in synthesizing very diverse currents, a synthesis accomplished thanks to a phenomenal work of arrangements. The style of the group is rarely virtuoso but always in balance between the melody, the efficiency and the complexity. Yes, Unitopia has a universe... its own! A timeless style that successfully combines the different currents that have influenced it.

It is almost impossible to detail all the richness of this "Garden", in which the excellence of the production is combined with the irreproachability of the musicians to deliver to us without any doubt one of the best albums of the year 2008 in the progressive music with symphonic tendency. Throw yourself without delay on this opus, the journey is up to the expectations placed in this group! - Official website

UNITOPIA

THE GARDEN

INSIDEOUT MUSIC

PROGRESSIVE ROCK