Artist: Pallas
Label: Inside Out Records
Release: 2005
Rating: 4.5/5
This is no joke! Pallas are back after four years. Back straight to the greatness of their debut “The Sentinel” (1984). At first I was afraid the guys had picked another overly demanding concept and, chasing perfection in such fine detail, accidentally “overinflated” it, so that it would instantly collapse under the weight of sky-high expectations, the way its predecessor “The Cross And The Crucible” (2001) did. This time, though, the guys weren’t quite so strict and demanding with themselves.
After a three-minute, admittedly majestic classical keyboard intro, during which I was genuinely scared for the first time while listening, because that intro seemed suspicious to me. Suspicious because of my relative personal disappointment with “The Cross And The Crucible”, which also started out very ambitiously, only to lose the plot. Bringer Of Dreams was the first to prove me wrong, though, because the song takes off. It takes off at full steam. Pallas strike after three minutes and instantly catapult us into a dimension all their own, with an atmosphere all their own, which these melancholic Scots know how to build with remarkable finesse. Goosebumps all over the body are by no means excluded in the face of such a massive wall of sound. Pallas don’t lose the plot, and the song is a declaration that we have a new great Pallas album in front of us and that plenty of musically sensual delights are about to happen in the coming minutes!
Warriors marks no step back and leaves an even bigger impression, as it opens in a more rock-oriented way and the intensity doesn’t let up. Naturally it, too, doesn’t go without a stretched-out middle section, where we witness real drama in the interplay of melodies between guitar and keyboards. The authentic “Rickenbacker” sound of the bass guitar is the heart of the record! In the production it’s clearly separated, and its fantastic, melodic, lively strolling tears and cuts through steel so hard it’ll knock you off your feet! Ghostdancers blows you away into a totally different galaxy, spiced up with a Celtic folk intro with violin. The concept is about the search for justice, preserving dignity, the battle for honor, and making big dreams of a better life come true. Dreams! The Ghostdancers are the exterminated Native Americans, who suffered at the expense of white people’s search for a better life. But the album reaches its peak with To Close To The Sun. This is the progressive high point of the record, with a development you can’t possibly predict all the way through and unexpected shifts in mood, again featuring outstanding solo motifs from keyboards and guitar. The song Messiah relaxes the seriousness of the first four more intricately composed and strict songs. Messiah is a shorter song, where the “rock” guitar “riff” is much more pronounced and where the bass line keeps eagerly coaxing that magical, slightly distorted, rattling sound out of the Rickenbacker. Messiah has hit single potential! The keyboard arrangements in the background carry oriental influences here. The track is a witty parody of the duplicity of God’s middlemen. Northern Star is a calm instrumental with the guitar at its center, which (interestingly!) in sound and line recalls some newfangled invention of the venerable Steve Howe (Yes). Then fans of heavier distorted sounds can get ready for their ruckus, because Mr. Wolfe follows, wicked from head to tail and the most riff-driven track on the record, delivered in a purely classicist style. Give yourselves over to the supremely ironic bass lines up front in the sound of the production! The art of unpredictability! With Invincible, Pallas head back toward darkness, and that peaks on the closing The Last Angel. Both songs clock in well over 10 minutes and are classically neo-prog in design. The record ends on a high-spirited finish, where a female vocal plays the role of an angel and carries her “heavenly” lines in Italian. Well, the sun finally shines through in the end. Both songs, despite their impressive massive wall of sound, don’t quite reach the pomp of the first half of the record, where practically an entire orchestra, woodwinds and strings included, is present in building the sound, for which special thanks go to keyboardist Ronnie Brown.
“The Dreams Of Men” has the potential to become a monument, or a rock classic, over the years. It’s an exceptionally polished and mature album, on which the guys in Pallas have found the winning formula for their coexistence: being on the same wavelength at just the right moment. In doing so they’ve created a timeless work of art, one you never actually get tired of listening to, and for Pallas it marks a new peak of their career.
Lineup
Alan Reed – vocals
Niall Mathewson – guitar
Ronnie Brown – keyboards
Graeme Murray – bass guitar, backing vocals
Colin Fraser – drums
Guest musicians:
Pandy Arthur – vocals on 9
Paul Anderson – whistle on 1 and 3
Karen Raitt – backing vocals on 5
Lisa Paterson – backing vocals
Production
Niall Mathewson & Graeme Murray
Track list
1. The Bringer Of Dreams (9:50)
2. Warriors (7:15)
3. Ghostdancers (7:30)
4. Too Close To The Sun (11:34)
5. Messiah (4:57)
6. Northern Star (4:01)
7. Mr. Wolfe (5:48)
8. Invincible (10:45)
9. The Last Angel (11:28)
Album length: 73:08
