Southern Empire vs. Unitopia

[Random Axe]

I'm digging the shit out of SE recently and I read some former members of Uni are in this band. how similar are they and is quality songwriting/vox comparable?

[introclaus]

I'm digging the shit out of SE recently and I read some former members of Uni are in this band. how similar are they and is quality songwriting/vox comparable?

Like you I love Southern Empire - both studio albums and the live album are absolute master pieces in modern heavy prog rock!

I’ve checked out Unitopia a few times over the past few years for that same reason - to see if the connection between SE and U was big enough that I would like the band. Well, nothing has completely grabbed me with Unitopia yet. It seems more “laid back”, less emphasis on the heavy aspects, more jazzy and more world music (interesting use of that funny Australian didgeridoo sound) influences. The vocalist sounds like he could have stepped right out of any UK neo prog band though which isn’t a bad thing at all. I believe there’s only 3 albums so it’s not like it’s a lot of time investment to check out if you’ll like them or not - the one I had the biggest success with (only one I ended up buying) was “Artificial”.

Hope that helps.

[Random Axe]

I kinda figured it would be mostly a mood difference. What I heard of Unitopia was pretty mellow and maybe overly long? It wasn't bad by any means but, like a lot of British prog, it was pretty lifeless to someone like me who is far more into the metallic side. Thanks for the feedback. The general consensus is Artificial is the one to start with when exploring them, so I'll grab that and see what happens.

[ToddS]

I love Southern Empire, and find them more interesting than Unitopia. Though to be fair, I should explore Unitopia more. I did like what heard by them, but didn’t get pulled in the way SE grabbed me right off.