Pallas (band)

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Pallas
General information
Genre (s) Progressive Rock , Neo-Prog
founding 1977
Website www.pallasofficial.com
Current occupation
Paul Mackie
Graeme Murray
Ronnie Brown
Niall Mathewson
Colin Fraser
former members
singing
 Euan Lowson
singing
 Alan Reed
Drums
 Derek Forman

Pallas is a Scottish progressive rock band , in the neo-prog variant of the 1980s. In addition to IQ , Pendragon , Abel Ganz, Twelfth Night and Marillion , they form the elite of British neo-prog.

Band history

Pallas was founded in Aberdeen in 1979 . They emerged from a formation called Rainbow , which included bassist Graeme Murray. Except for him, all the members had changed when Pallas with the line-up Euan Lowson (singer), Niall Mathewson (guitar), Ronnie Brown (keyboard), Graeme Murray and Derek Forman (drums) released several singles and an album on their own in the early 1980s . The live album Arrive Alive helped them to get a record deal with EMI sub-label Harvest . They achieved their breakthrough in 1984 with the first official studio album The Sentinel . It was produced by Eddie Offord, who had worked with Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes . The album narrowly missed the top 40 of the British charts and was also released internationally. They managed to give the progressive rock of the 1970s a new, contemporary direction. Their style was a bombastic, guitar-heavy sound, based on the early Yes albums or other representatives of early Prog, but sometimes significantly harder and also influenced by hard rock formations.

Already with the first album there were disagreements with the label and the producer about content and mix. While the band wanted a concept album, the label insisted on songs suitable for singles. Euan Lowson had left the band because of dissatisfaction with the development. The next album The Wedge two years later was recorded with Alan Reed as the new singer. Although it reached the charts again, it didn't come close to its predecessor. In contrast to Sentinel , it didn't produce a single hit either. Since the label also had the commercially successful band Marillion under contract with the same target audience, Harvest decided to go with the British and dissolved the contract with Pallas.

A new contract with Polygram did not materialize for reasons similar to those that led to the falling out with EMI. In the following period the band partially fell apart, but never broke up and continued to give concerts. Only after a long break and with Colin Fraser as the drummer instead of Forman, Pallas took up a studio album again in 1999 with the title Beat the Drum . Since then, other studio and above all live albums and DVDs have been released at irregular intervals. The band remained very active, especially live, and was one of the headliners at the 5th Night of the Prog Festival on September 3, 2010 at the Loreley. Before the sixth studio album XXV , the singer changed again: Reed was replaced by Paul Mackie.

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
The Sentinel
  UK 41 02/25/1984 (3 weeks)
The wedge
  UK 70 02/22/1986 (1 week)
Singles
Eyes in the Night
  UK 87 01/28/1984 (2 weeks)
Shock Treatment
  UK 82 04/07/1984 (2 weeks)
Strangers
  UK 92 05/04/1985 (1 week)

Studio albums

  • 1984 The Sentinel
  • 1986 The Wedge
  • 1999 Beat the Drum
  • 2001 The Cross and the Crucible
  • 2005 The Dreams of Men
  • 2011 XXV
  • 2014 Wearewhoweare

Live albums / compilations

  • 1981 Arrive Alive
  • 2000 Live Our Lives
  • 2002 Mythopoeia (compilation)
  • 2003 The Blinding Darkness (DVD)
  • 2005 The River Sessions 1
  • 2005 The River Sessions 2
  • 2005 Live from London (DVD) '
  • 2006 Official Bootleg 01/27/06
  • 2008 Moment to Moment (DVD)
  • 2012 Live at Lorelei (14-02-2012) (DVD)
  • 2019 The Edge Of Time (box set / compilation)

swell

  1. ↑ a b Pallas , entry in the roxikon, accessed on February 28, 2016
  2. ↑ Pallas - XXV (Review), Stephen Judge, Blurt 12 May, 2011.
  3. ↑ a b placements in the UK charts

Web links