Unitopid — The Garden
And certainly for the first disk the band convincingly pull off their mix of sounds in a sleek, highly musical polished yet enjoyable and shifting manner. With the key presence often been Mark Trueack harmonic and soaring vocals- which come off like a mix of Gerry Rafferty meets early Peter Gabriel via AOR, 80’s prog and theatrical influences. With the band weaving a heady, smooth and often exotic prog soup around him- in the mix we have of course have: guitar, bass and synth’s in places along with the odd hint of tuneful sax playing and often some great through maybe a little camp world influence here and there too. Like Brazilian like rhythmic work-outs, eastern female vocalising and flute folds & of course the old prog favourite Spanish guitar. There’s also a fair bit of backing harmonies going on too giving the songs a very lush, poppy and if in the right mood inviting edge. With the band managing still to rock out with fairly heavy prog rock riffs here & there too- but for most the part this is fairly smooth and bright in its make-up- nothong too dark or threatening here
The problems unfortunately come with the second disk; it just feels like they’ve over stretched them self’s too far trying to make the 'epic double prog album'. Meaning that many of the tracks on the second disk either feel like uninspired carbon copies of the first disk tracks or worse still bland nicey- nicey AOR rock with prog hints. Sure there a few rays of light, but for the most part it just feels rather bland with little of the bands flare, adventurous spirit or enjoyable songwriting and sonic flourishers in place.
So if we mostly forget the second disk, this is a highly rewarding, lush, melodic and adventurous modern prog album- that is certainly worthy of your time if you enjoy tuneful & epic prog rock