Unitopia hailing from Canberra, Australia originally released their debut album More Than A Dream in 2005, and now in 2007 Unicorn Digital has re-released it. I’m sure as a deal to get a new album. The band consists of Mark Trueack (singer/percussionist), Sean Timms (Guitarists/Vocalist), and Matt Williams (Keyboardist/ vocalist). There are other musicians that help flesh out the songs.
The music is vocal based progressive rock leaning on a more accessible side with influences like hard rock, new age, progressive rock, jazz, just to name a few. I’ll go out on a limb to say that Unitopia is a part of the new Modern Symphonic Progressive Rock movement seen or rather heard lately.
The concepts on More Than A Dream are rooted in the present about daily life. Not the usual fare for progressive rock bands but that’s the beauty of the genre. I quite enjoy the whole album but I find the song “Slow Down” a wonderful song that basically about our ‘fast-food’ generation. And yes we do need to slow down, pun intended!
Some bands that Unitopia can be grouped with are RPWL, Porcupine Tree along with label mates Xinema, The Gourishankar & Karfagen to name a few. I’m very glad Unicorn Digital re-released this album because frankly it probably wouldn’t have seen much the light of day outside their homeland. I look forward to future releases by Unitopia and I’d recommend if you like the bands I mentioned, then pick up a copy of More Than A Dream. It’s a wonderful beautiful album that gets repeat plays in my CD players! Hear for yourself by clicking on the MySpace link above!
Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on August 24th, 2007
