VELVET THUNDER

Pallas had the talent and could have had a similar trajectory to Marillion. This release shows what a gifted band Pallas were and how unlucky they were not to go on to greater things. 

A history of neo-prog might start with the line: ‘In the beginning, five men came down from Scotland and made a name for themselves by playing frequently at the Marquee’. You’d be forgiven for precipitously shouting out the answer ‘Marillion’, but they were not the only band from north of the border (or Fish, at least…) looking to resuscitate progressive rock. At pretty much the same time, Aberdeen-based Pallas were also on their way south to seek fortune and fame. They might not have found it in the quantity that Marillion did, but today they are rightly recognised as one of the founders of the neo-prog movement. This welcome six-CD plus one Blu-ray box set comprehensively documents those heady days for Pallas.

The roots of Pallas go back to November 1974 when a quintet of Aberdeen lads formed a group called Rainbow, even if bassist Graeme Murray was the only member of Rainbow who survived through to the ‘80s. The emergence of Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow forced a switch of name, and they chose Pallas. The first Pallas release was an EP in 1978, consisting of somewhat amateurish punkish material, but the arrival of guitarist Niall Matthewson, frontman Euan Lowson and keyboard player Ronnie Brown meant that by the end of 1979, the classic Pallas line-up of the first two albums had formed.  

The first Pallas album, Arrive Alive, was self-released in June 1981, initially only on cassette tape and consisting of six tracks recorded live that captured the essence of the band’s superb stage performances.  The relatively short Flashpoint is almost an anomaly, being something of a straightforward rocker, while the remaining five tracks are all lengthy and quite complex prog compositions. Each of these five has something memorable about them: the brilliant opening chord sequence and drawn-out melody of 5 to 4; the irresistible boogie of Queen Of The Deep; the brilliant rising theme of Heart Attack (strikingly similar to the closing section of Kate Bush’s Breathing, written at around the same time); and the epic imagery in Crown Of Thorns (‘There is a green hill far away, without a city wall; where each of us are crucified in a crown of thorns’). And last, but not least, the fifteen-minute The Ripper, with Lowson’s chilling representation (both vocally and theatrically) of the yet-to-be-identified Yorkshire Ripper which became the band’s signature song. The Ripper opens in almost identical fashion to Marillion’s He Knows You Know, which is perhaps the only point where the sound of the two bands clearly intersects. Looking back now, despite their obvious Genesis influences, Marillion still sound unique and merit the ‘neo’ tag whereas on Arrive Alive Pallas sound more like a continuation of classic ‘70s prog.

Despite its quality, Arrive Alive failed initially to garner any interest from record labels. Pallas then recorded three demos, with the explicit aim of showing the labels their ability to write shorter more chart-friendly material: the hard-rocking Arrive Alive (not to be confused with the album title!), the light pop-rock of Paris Is Burning, and the synth-pop of Stranger On The Edge Of Time. While the latter was a rather poor clone of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Arrive Alive and Paris Is Burning represent two highlights of Pallas’ entire career. Arrive Alive anticipated the type of tighter punchier songs they would write later (but only rarely matching the power of this one), Paris Is Burning was something of a one-off, successfully evoking the atmosphere of wartime Paris. It’s so far away musically from the debut album that it’s hard to believe it’s the same band, but it remains a brilliant pop song.

Gradually the band built up a following and they were signed to EMI Records. With legendary Eddie Offord pencilled in at the production desk, things certainly looked bright for the album that would become The Sentinel, released in 1984.  Pallas had written enough material to create an ambitious double concept album based around a reworking of the Atlantis myth. However, EMI were having nothing to do with that and wanted a single vinyl release with some shorter more commercial material too. EMI won of course, and the result was neither fish nor fowl, with three shorter more commercial tracks offset by three longer prog ones. Arrive Alive was re-packaged as Eyes In The Night (and greatly improved), whilst the closing Atlantis stands out as the one epic track that matches the quality of the debut album. The longer songs still recounted elements of the Atlantis concept but now with huge gaps in the tale which made it meaningless!  Adding injury to insult, the mixing was a disaster. As Murray recalls in the accompanying essay: ‘We were completely convinced that someone else had intervened in the mixing process because the end result sounded nothing like what we had envisioned during our studio sessions. Anyone who has witnessed our live performances knows the sheer forcefulness of our sound, yet we felt that this potency was sorely lacking in the final product compared to the raw energy captured in the earlier rough mixes’.

Two of the missing pieces of the Atlantic jigsaw are included here (and remastered) – the ballad, East West, and the more theatrical March On Atlantis. These give you a sense of the ambition of the project and how it might have panned out into something quite exceptional. The Sentinel still remains a very good album but you sense a massive missed opportunity too. The band protestations over the quality of the mix led to it being remixed for the American market. That American release is also included here and it’s interesting because the differences are quite startling. In a nutshell, the keyboards, which are overly prominent on the UK mix, are pushed right back in the American mix. This brings to the fore the guitar work, as well as the vocals, giving a more mainstream sound and a tighter more aggressive feel. It also sounds less dated as a result, and to these ears is a much better mix. The box set also includes live recordings of The Sentinel material, including three tracks for the Friday Rock Show, all of which come over as better than the UK studio versions. Interestingly, the set Pallas played the Reading Festival in 1983 is included, and again three of the four songs played were from the yet unreleased The Sentinel. The sound quality isn’t the best but it’s another demonstration that The Sentinel material was so much better than what was put down on vinyl.

1984 marked a significant personnel change with Euan Lowson giving way to Alan Reed, even if they sounded so similar that you’d struggle to spot the difference.  The first release of this new line-up was an EP called Knightmoves. On one side of the vinyl were two shorter songs, including an overtly American popish effort called Stranger (imagine The Cars trying to write Arrive Alive and it would probably emerge like Stranger). On the other side was the ten-minute Sanctuary, an impressive prog slow burner. A free single was given out with the first run of Knightmoves, and Esoteric have included those two tracks here too. That’s good for completists; less so for purveyors of good music since both A Stitch In Time and Mad Machine are very poor.

It took another two years before Pallas released their third album, The Wedge, and sadly it is an underwhelming affair. Only the eight-minute Ratracing approaches the prog intensity of earlier material but without quite reaching the same heights. Likewise, Dance Through The Fire is a good stab at an energetic starter but without the quality of Arrive Alive. The Executioner (Bernie Goetz A Gun) is interesting both musically and lyrically, telling the true story of a subway passenger in New York who shot four youths who tried to rob him. The remainder though is very easily forgettable. I’ve seen fans try to talk up this album, but you can’t hide the lack of creativity on show. Whether the band had run out of steam, or just been forced down a commercial cul-de-sac by EMI, I don’t know. I suspect it was a combination of both.

Completing this box set are two live recordings from 1985, one video (at The Camden Palace in May), and an audio of a concert at The Ritzy on their home turf of Aberdeen. The focus is on material from The Wedge which is well-received by the audiences, even if the album was yet to be released. Crown Of Thorns is the only survivor from the debut album, and this along with Sanctuary and good energetic versions of Cut And Run and Shock Treatment are the highlights. Two bands bristling with talent may have come to the Marquee at the beginning of the neo-prog period, but there’s no doubt who was the winner. You could argue Arrive Alive is on a par with early Marillion material, but chronologically, The Wedge sits between Misplaced Childhood (1985) and Clutching At Straws (1987) which says everything about how rapidly their paths diverged.  Pallas had the talent and could have had a similar trajectory to Marillion. This release shows what a gifted band Pallas were and how unlucky they were not to go on to greater things.