The Garden (Blog Critics)

Superbly packaged both visually and musically, The Garden is indeed a place of ‘unearthly delight’.

It would be wrong to highlight any particular instrument on such a work but quite often the keyboards of Sean Timms take the music into an altogether higher place. Nicely balanced vocals from Mark Trueack are vaguely reminiscent of early Gabriel era Genesis. “The Garden” moves with such precision and momentum that it successfully locks the listener in.

If “The Garden”, with its beautifully uplifting finale, forms the centre piece to the first CD, the five part “Journey’s Friend” ignites the second.

The scope is huge, and the result is hugely successful. If anything, this work could have been two equally pleasing albums, built separately around the central themes of both disks. Having said that, I can argue against myself by saying that, in this double format, it is best heard in one highly absorbing sitting.

This of course is how we used to rush home from the record store clutching for example, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, before immersing ourselves. Unitopia has managed to provoke a similar sense of wonder with an album that really has to be explored and deserves recognition. - Jeff Perkins

Full review:

http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-unitopia-the-garden/page-2/