CARRYING A MESSAGE, CARRYING A MESSAGE…..MESSAGE OF HOPE

United Progressive Fraternity return with their third album, the second part of Planetary Overload, entitled Hope, continuing to raise awareness and narratives regarding the climate situation on our planet, but in contrast to first part, Loss, with an essence of optimism for the future.

Vocalist & songwriter, Mark Trueack (Unitopia) and fellow writer and multi-instrumentalist, Steve Unruh once again present us with an album featuring a huge guestlist, the united fraternity as it were, and, in all honesty, if I were to list them all, it would take up the entire bandwidth my web hosting service allows me for each separate page. Suffice to say that it is huge and suitably impressive. Further, that is not all that is big. The album itself is two hours of music over a couple of CDs, but that does not include a third bonus disc. Indeed, whilst I do enjoy this album in the round, it is a fair old slog to give three whole discs your full attention all the way through in one sitting, and I have, therefore, concentrated in this review on the main double album (although I really must make mention of the lovely Secret Garden, almost sixteen minutes of the Unitopia classic The Garden, on the bonus disc – worth the entrance price on its own).

So, on the main album, there are some wonderful highlights, but as is not unusual with albums of such length, some filler as well. There is a wide range of styles, ranging from the purely symphonic, via some eastern promise, to the heavier end of prog. The musicianship is never anything less than excellent, the production is sharp and a joy to listen to. Further, the artwork by Ed Unitsky is as grand and lovely as one has come to expect from this supreme artist.

I will name the spoken guest spots by giants of the environmental movement, namely Gerd Leonhard, Sir David Attenborough, and Chief Oren Lyons. They are important. There are extremes in the debate about climate change, as with all human dialogue, but most of us in the sensible centre, as it were, realise something serious is amiss, but place our faith in human ingenuity and the will to survive to be able to overcome and provide for a gentler future for our children. As the band themselves say, we choose optimism over despair.

So, to those highlights. The wonderfully titled Hope Is Drums of Hope starts us off. Grand, grandiose, and with a sense of synthesiser heaven that will certainly have fans of Vangelis salivating in its cinematic scope alongside some very nice vocal harmonies, wondering flute, a gorgeous guitar solo, and, of course, the drums of the title. It is embedded below, as is the track which follows it, Love Never Leaves Us, a track oozing rhythm (Wetton & Schiff take a bow), a delicious horn section and some magnificent effects, all overlaid by a particularly sensitive and emotional vocal performance. I think it is a very pretty song, and that is meant as a compliment.

The epic centrepiece of the album is the twenty-minute plus Being Of Equal. It opens with that eastern promise I alluded to above, with Unruh playing sitar and some swirling flute, with mysterious female backing chants. The second segment is darker, with an electronic rock theme emphasising industrialisation on our planet and the growth of cities and personal wealth bringing the inevitable increase in human selfishness – it is a lyrical passage which resonates very strongly in these ears. A Hammond organ and a massive bass lead dominate the next passage. I like the acoustic guitar introduction to the segment which follows, again featuring some lovely bass guitar melodies and nice keyboards backing some gorgeous Trueack vocals talking about The Seeds of Life. The passage which follows this is thoughtful and somewhat ambient in its repetitive notes and percussive dreams hopping across your ears alongside the harmonies created by the voices, and I can visualise Native Americans dancing on the plain ritualising this music before the mood is broken by a far harsher keyboard riff and a shift to more expansive, heavier music, but with a definite commercial sensibility to it, something that a modern 90125 Yes could easily be imagined producing. As with all the finest epics, the conclusion brings together perfectly all the preceding themes into a coherent whole. The final couple of minutes are beautiful, allowing the listener to come down gently. I have listened to this track several times now, and it gets better each time, the mark of quality. Intelligent, always with enough happening to ensure that you never lose interest, sonically perfect, and a very strong statement by its writers.

I have embedded Chants of Hope below. It is a short piece of music, but by God, it perfectly encapsulates that overriding message of hope. I think the vocals (and the words they speak) are inspirational, the guitar riff is urgent, and the violin of Unruh provides just the right dramatic sense to proceedings. A song of pure wonder to these ears.

Led Zeppelin fans will be reaching for their copies of Physical Graffiti for Homosapien, which quite clearly takes its inspiration from that period, but it is not a copy by any stretch of the imagination. There is a wonderful blues sensitivity to this with a smoky sax adding rich textures.

CD1 closes with Who We Really Are. Close your eyes, turn up the volume, and lose yourself in a surround of noise which I have embedded below. Beautiful, and a contender for this website’s track of 2023.

Onto CD2. Learning is another delicately thoughtful track I have grown to thoroughly enjoy, full of harmony, feeling, with a sense of classical rock imbued within it.

The Bees In Us is embedded below. It is the second contender for this website’s track of the year on the album, a slow burner which gradually embraces you with its tendrils of sound and feeling. A pastoral delight, an ode to the beauty of the world around us as exemplified by the honeybee. Are you a Big Big Train fan? Well, reading reviews on this website, you must be. This is up there with that exalted act.

The drumming on The Changes We Make is impressive, and the violin cries out to us in another yearning piece of music featuring more nice vocals and harmonies and a guitar lead dripping with blues and emotion. We all have our part to play. Let’s pray that we do so.

The penultimate track, Hymn of Hope is the final track I embed for your listening pleasure. It is a suitably grandiose completion of the themes explored here (the final track is a Reprise), with a hint of Americana in parts inside the operatic whole. As it moves to its conclusion, you are simply lost within the surround of sound created.

Trueack and Unruh have created another very impressive album. You can pop along to their Bandcamp page to give this a few listens at https://unitedprogressivefraternity.bandcamp.com/album/upf-s-planetary-overload-part-2-hope before parting with your hard earned. I guarantee, the more you listen, the more you will find it moving you. Yes, as I said before, there is some filler, but the highlights more than outweigh these in a warm album full of genuine sentiment.