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Unitopia - The Garden CD (album) cover

THE GARDEN

Unitopia

 

Crossover Prog

3.60 | 207 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Conor Fynes
Prog Reviewer
4 stars 'The Garden' - Unitopia (7/10)

There is something that frustrates me when it comes to reviewing this album. There are songs on here that I find fantastic, moving and utterly inspired; masterfully compiled pieces. On the other hand, there are songs that I find a bit less 'inspired,' fulfilling little other purpose than to fill the great amount of space two separate discs can offer.

As an overall product however, who am I to disagree with an album that has two discs worth of (at the very least) decent Symphonic Prog music, boasting a total of two epics...?

I think the most dissapointing thing about Unitopia's sophomore release is that it starts off so well, then one begins to realize after the three songs or so play out, that the entire album doesn't necessarily follow suit with the epic-standard of quality. After listening to the first quarter of the album, I was convinced I was listening to a masterpiece. Things start to take a turn for the worse, however...

Songs such as 'Amelia's Dream' and 'Give And Take' -while being listenable enough- don't necessarily attract the same amount of praise I might give the longer, more involved tracks. The album as a whole however, is very well recorded and engineered, featuring multiple layers of sound, even on the 'mainstream' leaning songs.

While the album feels a bit emotionally hollow (the songs are generally uber-peppy) it's indeniable that there is a great amount of intelligence going into the production and creation of Unitopia's music. As a result, while I am a bit conflicted about what rating this work should truly get (it has it's masterpiece qualities as well as it's non-essential qualities) I think that while a prog listener could probably live without 'The Garden' in their collection, it is a very enjoyable collection of music, and at times, an excellent piece of retrogressive prog music.

Conor Fynes | 4/5 |

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