Band: Pallas.
Song: Celebration.
Album: The Cross & the Crucible.
Alan Reed (Vocals, occasional guitar).
Graeme Murray (Bass, bass pedals, !2-string, vocals.
Niall Mathewson (Guitars).
Ronnie Brown (Keyboards, vocals).
Colin Fraser (Drums, percussion, vocals).
Pallas first rose to prominence as part of the progressive rock revival of the early 1980s, alongside contemporaries Marillion. After releasing their first, self-financed, live album, Arrive Alive, Pallas signed to EMI's Harvest Records. Their first studio album, The Sentinel, was an ambitious concept piece which used the myths of Atlantis as a parable of the then still-extant cold war. Shortly after release, however, the band parted company with singer Euan Lowson. He was quickly replaced by Alan Reed, from Glasgow band Abel Ganz.
This line-up recorded The Knightmoves EP (1985), and The Wedge LP (1986) before falling out with EMI and going their own way. A third studio album Voices in the Dark was underway, but the band essentially went into hibernation at the end of the 80s.
Re-releases of the EMI material in the early 90s provided renewed impetus and after various putative attempts the band resurfaced with 1998's Beat the Drum album, this time with Colin Fraser replacing original drummer, Derek Forman. Signing to specialist progressive rock label Inside Out, the band gained a new lease of life playing across Europe and further afield.
2001's The Cross and The Crucible was a distillation of all the band had learned so far, and is regarded as perhaps the band's most cohesive work. A live DVD/CD The Blinding Darkness followed in 2003. The band's fifth studio album, The Dreams of Men, surfaced in 2005; a harder-edged development on the maturing sound of 'The Cross...'. Another concert DVD, Moment to Moment, this time featuring many tracks from early in the band's career, appeared in 2008.
A steady schedule of archive releases has appeared in parallel with the band's main releases. The River Sessions 1 and 2 covered two different eras of the bands live performances, and the DVD Live from London - taken from a 1985 concert for TV - caught them just before recording 'The Wedge'.
A new studio album is due in 2009
