Album review : PALLAS – Eyes In The Night (The Recordings 1981-86, 7CD boxset)

Cherry Red [Release date : 28.06.24]

You have to credit Cherry Red with their even handed approach to reissues/remasters.

No offence to fans of neo-Prog band, Pallas, but the band is not front page news, and never have been, but they have produced a body of work that demands the kind of celebration we have here with this anthology.

6 CDs and 1 Blu-Ray disc in one package. All remastered from the original recordings.

CD1: Arrive Alive (1981)
CD2: Pallas At The BBC (plus Friday Rock Show, plus Reading Festival, 1983)
CD3: The Sentinel UK Mix (1984)
CD4: The Sentinel US Mix (1984)
CD5: The Wedge (1986)
CD6: Live At Ritzy’s (1985)
Disc 7 Blu-Ray : Live In London (1985)

With a sprinkling of non album singles and the semi legendary Knight Moves EP.
Plus a lavishly illustrated book.

The story of Scottish band, Pallas’s journey from its formation in the late seventies, to The Wedge in 1986 is the stuff of best selling biographies.
The band, whose name is taken taken from the outer limits of Greek mythology, found itself frequently let down by the chaotic and frequently mendacious nature of the music business.

And yet, one way or another, they managed to create a new strain of progressive rock.

‘Arrive Alive’ (Eyes In The Night) and ‘Flashpoint’ show them shrugging off their initial metal/hard rock tendencies. And on that same debut album, ‘Crown Of Thorns’ and ‘The Ripper’ witness the band taking on a theatrical Progrock mantle, with echoes and shades of Marillion and King Crimson ringing out loud and clear.

A four year slog on the live circuit, and occasional, but valuable radio exposure led to a record deal and an 8 week recording session with Eddy (Yes / ELP) Offord in his US studio.

The album, The Sentinel, unashamedly influenced by Marillion, Genesis and others in the Progrock vanguard, was the breakthrough. It displays a huge leap forward in production sonics and songwriting nous.

Yet, it was initially compromised (allegedly) by Offord’s “rushed mix”, a setback rectified by the band’s own “power remix” later in the year.

Thus we have two versions of the album here, with the remix including four bonus tracks.
‘Cut and Run’ and ‘Ark Of Infinity’ are the highlights, with the “Cold War” subject matter of the overarching ‘Atlantis Suite’ dividing opinion, then and now.

And talking about “divided opinion”, the follow up, The Wedge led to fierce debate among fans of the band.

No question that the production and the arrangements channeled the band’s songs into a narrower, more mainstream direction, a development that suffered the full force of the Neo-Prog purists’ ire.

Yet, critics and fans were united in their praise of standout tracks, ‘Sanctuary’, ‘Rat Racing’ and ‘The Executioner’, lauding them as the condensed and distilled product of the band’s Neo-Prog journey through the decade.

It certainly became clear that the band’s magnum opus, Beat The Drum was in their sights, but that didn’t arrive until 12 years later.

Live at Ritzy’s and Live In London show off the band in all its theatrically tailored stage presence.

The DVD in itself is huge value for money. A now classic Neo-Prog band, at their best, strutting their stuff in front of a thousand fans. It doesn’t get much better than this. *****

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)