I had the pleasure to review this extremely big project of United Progressive Fraternity, titled Planetary Overload Part 2 Hope. It took me a while to get all the music because these two discs are about two hours of music. During my journey of listening and knowing this music, I did not want to review all of this besides of the earlier stuff. I had to listen and consume every minute of the earlier albums because I wanted to compare it (it is a trilogy with the same theme). In total I had to listen to four hours of music. Wow, what a huge project Mark Trueack (Unitopia) and Steve Unruh (The Samurai Of Prog) wanted to show to the world. I always love people and music that has something to tell you, to teach you, to overthink so you can make up your mind, to get new insights of what we are doing, in this case to the world and maybe how to change that. And those themes are exactly what part 2 Hope is about. You can listen to the lyrics as if we are doing everything wrong, or we can consume the lyrics and learn a little bit. The best thing is to reflect on what we are doing now and what we can change, so the next generation has no mess from what we did. I like to reflect a lot, I think that is one of the things why we are on this planet, and if we can reflect during listening to great, great music, then one plus one is three at the minimum. I can tell a lot more about the lyrics, but I will not do that because my conclusions of what I hear will maybe not your conclusions, and you may found your own. The really nice thing about this project is that Mark has drawn up the lyrical lines and invited a lot of people to create the music around the lyrics. I will not mention all the people involved because in total there are about 60 different people who play one or more instruments. If you want to have a look at these people, please read the review of the earlier album Planetary Overload Part 1: Loss (2019, see review). I don't think everybody played at the second part, but you have an idea. I can tell you that these people are not the least in the progressive music world. If you take a look at the cover and booklet, just wow, excellent and superb. I never saw these kind of pictures in a booklet, tremendous! If we go to the music, Hope Is is a nice song where the trio-drums are excellent and a nice start of the album. Love Never Leaves Us has a great lyrical vibe with trumpet sounds. Being Of Equal is a monster song with a length of more than 20 minutes, everything you can imagine takes place in this one, a unique piece of work. From prog to world music, heavy and slow. Islands is an up tempo rocker, Chants Of Hope grabs you by the throat with the fantastic voice of Mark, it touches you deeply, and then the violin of Steve Unruh, tears run down your cheeks, a fantastic song. In my opinion the song is too short because of its beauty. Than Homosapien has a lot of brass sections and is another dimension of music that you can expect musical wise. The second disc starts with the fantastic song We Only Get One Chance, what is the longest track on this one, it is about 10 minutes long and has beautiful guitar solos and sounds bombastic now and then. There is a lot of variety in this song and that makes it a good one. Faultline sounds heavy and deals about the choices that we make for ourselves without thinking about other people and only wanting more and more. In Learning I get a feeling to be part of a victory, that breathes the music. Here is a turning point, maybe there is hope for us people to make new choices that are good for our planet. Stabilisation is another great song with some really heavy moments and nice guitars, you surely have to move with your head. The Bees In Us shows us that we absolutely can change, a more ballad like song, at some point a bit sweet. In Return To Earth we do realize that standing on our feet again, that that is where we were made for. Musically mellow and lyrically Mark sings that we are amazing, and that is exactly what we humans are! Than Hymns Of Hope opens with the violins of Steve. And the violins are one of the highlights of the complete album for me, that instrument touches your soul again and again. Also Hymns Of Hope is a great and emotional song, it touches you and it carries you. It is full circle now, if we realize what we are doing, we have the opportunity to do things in an other way and we are more and more connected to ourselves again, because in earlier times we lost ourselves and now, now we are back again with love and understanding! What a fantastic journey is this project, I learned a lot about myself and that is always more than welcome. I think that everybody needs to have this total project in its cupboard, you owe it to yourself. I can only give this project five stars, it actually deserves 6 out of 5. ***** Michel Stolk (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
