PLANETARY OVERLOAD, PART 2 - HOPE

I love Mark Trueack's tenacious, relentless goal of raising human consciousness with respect to how we treat the planet that provides us with sanctuary as well as how we as a species treat each other and other species. He refuses to waver, does not back down, keeps pushing forward, trying to open our minds, create conversations, expand our propensities for empathy and compassion. And I love how much Mark's vision and spirit has attracted so many of all- stars from the prog community to endorse his vision through collaboration. I, for one, am so appreciative of the monumental efforts you all have put toward such a dire, yea, necessary cause. So, thank you, Steve Unruh. Thank you, Chrisrophe Lebled. Thank you, Gordo Bennett. Thank you, Ben Craven. Thank you, Nick Magnus. Thank you, Rachel Flowers. Thank you, Dale Nougher. Thank you, Ryo Okumoto. Thank you, Alex Grata. Thank you, Sam Greenwood. Thank you, Sean Timms. Thank you, Jean-Pierre Louveton. Thank you, John Greenwood. Thank you, Peter Lazar. Thank you, Tony Jokinen. Thank you, Charlie Cawood. Thank you, Steve Hackett. Thank you, Michel St-Père. Thank you, Matt Williams. Thank you, Don Schiff. Thank you, Colin Edwin. Thank you, Jonas Reingold. Thank you , Lisa Wetton. Thank you, Tommy Murray. Thank you, Hans Jörg Schmitz. Thank you, Chus Gancedo. Thank you, Daniele Giovannoni. Thank you, Jerry Marotta. Thank you, Clive Hodson. Thank you, Jamison Smeltz. Thank you, Ian Ritchie. Thank you, Brendon Darby. Thank you, Rod Ennis. Thank you, Hasse Froberg. Thank you, Claire Vezina. Thank you, Michelle Young. Thank you, Jeramy Stanton Essary. Thank you, Elisa Montaldo. Thank you, Ed Unitsky. Thank you, Cornel Wilczek. Thank you, Matthew Atherton. Thank you, Marek Arnold. Thank you, Daniel Mash. Thank you, Mark Franco. Thank you, Joe Toscano. Thank you, Jon Davison. Thank you, Grace Bawden. Thank you, Angus Keay. Thank you, Ettore Salati. Thank you, Valentine Halembackov. Thank you, George Perdikis. Thank you, Angelo Racz. Thank you, Raf Azaria. Thank you, Marc Papeghin. Thank you, Guillermo Cides. Thank you, David Hopgood. Thank you, Phill Sokha. Thank you, Jesús Bancedo García. Thank you, Jon Anderson. Thank you, Guy Manning. Thank you, Tim Irrgang. Thank you, Holly Tueack. Thank you, Jon Barrett. Thank you, Steve Layton. And thank you, Mark Trueack. Your intentions and efforts are greatly appreciated, even venerated.

CD 1 (61:33) 1. "Hope Is Drums of Hope" (7:44) Great start. a top three song. (13.75/15) 2. "Love Never Leaves Us" (7:43) (13.5/15) 3. "Soundscaped Quote Gerd Leonhard" (0:48) 4. "The Answer" (5:31) (8.5/10) 5. "Being of Equal" (20:49) (35/40) 6. "Islands" (5:11) (8.75/10) 7. "Transition (Tuning In)" (0:26) 8. "Chants of Hope" (2:24) (8.875/10) 9. "Homosapien" (6:20) cool story with some very solid rock music. (8.875/10) 10. "Quote Sir David Attenborough" (0:43) 11. "Who We Really Are" (3:54) driving solo piano opening over which Mark joins in with his fast-paced vocal. Bass and female background vocals are the only other instruments until Steve Unruh's violin at 2:45. Once again, I wish I were less deaf to music's lyrical content. (8.75/10)

CD 2 (58:43) 12. "We Only Get One Chance" (10:03) a song that opens a bit blandly before building slowly in the third minute into something special. The broken promises chorus is powerful--especially with the percussion and Indian violin. Though it never quite realizes its full potential, there is a nice touch with the lead vocals of French-accented female vocalist Claire Vezina (she's from Québec) in the second half. Pleasant enough and interesting throughout--especially for its broad spectrum of world music contributors--but in the end nothing very special. (17.5/20) 13. "Transition (Suspense)" (0:13) 14. "Faultline" (6:38) a folk rocker as if trying to be JETHRO TULL from 1971. (8.66667/10) 15. "Learning" (4:35) horns and orchestration in the opening give this a BIG BIG TRAIN sound. Even Mark's delicate vocal entry sounds like Dave Longdon. Great contributions by the background vocalists (and great BBT-like arrangement). Another top three song. (9/10) 16. "Stabilization" (8:03) (13.125/15) 17. "The Bees in Us" (6:40) a very emotional, evocative song beautifully arranged to maximize Mark's vocal (and message). Another song with great background vocal arrangements and performances. Another top three song. (9/10) 18. "Quote Chief Oren Lyons" (1:01) 19. "The Changes We Make" (5:00) a pretty standard blues-rock-oriented song composed, obviously, to help convey the message in the lyrics. (8.6667/10) 20. "Return to Earth" (5:15) (8.875/10) 21. "Hymn of Hope" (6:52) More great, almost church-choir-like, background vocal arrangements helping out a soft and serene song in which Mark continues to proselytize his message of hope. (13.25/15) 22. "Reprise" (4:23) Reprise of what? Served up with a very Peter Gabriel-like sound and style. Even the vocal is like PG's iconic "Digging in the Dirt." Lots of keyboard-generated sounds (also like PG). Maybe that's why this song comes across as such an engaging, likable song. The horns and b vox add so much as well as the ChapmanStick in the bass department. (9.25/10)

Total Time 120:16

An album that, unfortunately, comes across quite strongly as a Mark Trueack delivery mechanism due to Mark's near 100 percent monopoly of the lead vocal duties. I mean, I get it: this is his project, under his initiative, carrying forth his lyrical message to the world--but as a music entertainment I have to admit that I would love to see some of these other incredibly talented artists have turns in the lead vocal chair.

B/four stars; an excellent addition to any prog lover's music collection--and a rewarding inspiration for any hope- holders against Near-Term Human Extinction.

I have been involved in developing a few mission statements over the years, and it is not something I really enjoy doing as there is always the risk of overstating/understating the intent, and then the business not living up to it anyway. Not every business does this of course, and even fewer bands, but you can read United Progressive Fraternity's on their website, "To produce great music, as a collective concept, whilst conveying a message of peace, hope and global awareness". There is a lot more than that of course, but this is the core. Hence we now have the second part of 'Secondary Overload', following on from 2019's 'Loss'. The core of the band are the duo of Mark Trueack (vocals) and Steve Unruh (vocals, guitars, sitar guitar, bass, bass pedals, thumb piano, violin, flute, wind chimes, tambourine, percussion, narration, harmony vocals), but then there are a whole host of guests involved including the likes of Charlie Cawood, JPL, Ryo Okomuto and Steve Hackett but if you are that interested you will need to look them up yourselves as there are about 40! Also, if the nealy two hours of music is not enough then if you purchase it from Bandcamp you get an additional album, 'The Secret Life of Light', featuring an additional nine songs (68 minutes) by UPF's "Romantechs" (Christophe Labled, Mark Trueack, Steve Unruh) which takes us up to a running time of three hours!

This is progressive rock, with loads of different elements and influences as one would expect from the involvement of so many musicians. It can be somewhat overpowering at times, with so many threads and layers that they can blend into each other, yet what makes this work is at the heart of this are some really strong melodies and songs and one can never deny the power of the lyrics and words. This is all about communication and something which brings this really home are the tracks which are just speeches from the likes of Sir David Attenborough and Chief Oren Lyons ? that they have been brought in without any trickery really makes them stand out and brings the message strongly home that we are damaging our planet, but we can still reverse what we have done so far, hence "Hope". This is not an album which can be drifted into, there needs to be a deliberate decision to sit and really listen to it, played on headphones when one has the time to concentrate and not be disturbed. Given the amount of work which has gone into this, the amount of people involved, and the small matter of a global pandemic it is no surprise this album too much longer to appear than was expected, and while there are elements quite reminiscent at times of The Flower Kings this is very much an album which stands on its own. There is a lot to take in here, both lyrically and musical volume, but it is definitely worth the effort.