Pallas -The Midas Touch -Progressive Voyages Review

This new 8 cd and 1 Blu Ray set continues the story of Pallas from 1995 to 2007, Basically this means all of their output on the Inside Out label after The Wedge and their many years in the Wilderness between labels.

You get the following Albums Beat The Drum, Live Our Lives Volumes 1 and 2, The Cross And The Crucible, The Blinding Darkness over 2 Cds, The Dreams Of Men, and the live Moment To Moment, the Blu Ray has both the Blinding Darkness Dvd and the Moment To Moment akso with extras these being The Return of The Ripper and various interviews and behind the scenes lasting for pover 3 hours in total, You also get a highly informative booklet,let documenting their journey, written by Mike Bentley who is a bit of a Pallas expert who knows his stuff.

Whilst I already had The Blinding Darkness cd this set offers a great way to catch up with these often hard to find albums all together in one neat package and one that is also a fine companion piece to last years Eyes In The Night set.

The set begins with Beat The Drum (1999) which contains songs that originally appeared on the self released Cassette Sketches.alongside several further compositions to make the album.

First Track Call To Arms is a fine rocker, However the epic Beat The Drum is really something special, as it looks at the 50 years since the cold wall with the fall,of the Berlin wall and how thet has affected the world, it is an intelligently written track with a strong bassline throughout and some fine guitar lines and a generally strong set of dynamics to its powerful sound. Other great tracks include Hide And Seek, Man Of Principle and Fragments Of The Sun.

The next album Live Our Lives is a 2 cd set consisting of track from Beat The Drum interspersed with track from their earlier years including several from The Sentinel, Always good to hear these track performed again live.

Next album was The Cross And The Crucible which looked at the conflict between science and religion, with track such as The Big Bang,Towers Of Babble and Midas Touch.Title track The Cross And The Crucible begins with a lengthy symphonic Orchestration of keyboards and synthesisers that create a vast soundscape for guitarist Niall Mattheson to play over the song e flores the conflict Although it does not take a side but explores it with an open mind, allowing the listener to make his own conclusion.

Next track is For The Greater Glory, seems to be about war and the greater good lie that is often used to justify such conflicts, Who's To Blame explores killings justified by beliefs and asks who is to blame for propagating such views,, its a good question, One to which there sadly is no clear answer.

Towers Of Babble is next this us the albums seecond longest track at 8 minutes 11 seconds in length the track concerns utselfvwith the sheer volume of noise and contradicting philosophies that bombard us today, how false narratives are invented pushed and promoted especially politically leaving most folks captive to these falsehoods and unable or unwillingly to think for themselves, whilst this song was written in 2001 it is still highly relevant today in an age of fake manufactured noise.

Generations is next which is innocuous enough better still is Midas touch which about the greed of man and his desire to seek wealth and gold The soong expresses the idea that this is a fruitless and unsatisfying search that man chases, a fact borne out in the lives of DonaldcTrump and Elon Musk to name but 2 people who pursue health at the expense of their humanity.

An excellent track with lost of stirring musical passages throughout.

Celebrations concludes this most interesting album, with a medium length track with excellent upfront bass and arpeggio guitar lines, the song celebrates life and exports us to reach for the stars as there is much that unites us as opposed to the small things that separate us,. It is an uplifting track and a fine conclusion to what is certainly a thnking album.

The next album is The Blinding Darkness cd which is split overc2 cds again this covers material from the Cross And The Crucible album and several older Pallas classics like Crown Of Thorns, Atlantic and The Ripper which has an appearance from Euon Lowson ( their previous singer)

Next album is The Dreams Of Men, which begins withbthe long song The Bringer Of Dreams, which is a suitably Symphonic track with lots of strong keyboards and guitars, the song is about dreams or nightmares whatever your mind decides to choose for you.

Warriors is next this seems to refer to the horrible events of September 11th when The World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists, A day that changed the world forever to be a far less open one the it had been beforehand.

InInvincible Is the albums longest track this track tackles the dichotomy of a working life and the pressures and challenges to tie the line and be compliant for the company, as you lose your identity in the process and pay the ultimate price with your service to the machine.

Final track is The Last Angel another lengthy track this one looks at civilisation from the view of an outsider who can see common themes and problems that keep recurring through time and history, He has seen it often enough and ponders why mankind can't learn from the past as he seeks to find his way home. A thoughtful insightful song with strong symphonic music to match its lyrics

The Final album in this set is the live album Moment To Moment which is also included on the live blu ray in this set.This was recorded 8nnPoland in 2007 and covers material from every era of Palls's history

The Blu ray includes both the Blinding Darkness and The Moment To Moment shows with various extras. It is a fabulous if lenngthy set of some classic progressive music historybthat it is wonderful to hear once again. Highly recommended indeed.

The whole set is well curated and documents and important section of the bands history, especially as this year Alan Reed is stepping away from live performances due to his Parkinson’s diagnosis.

Info here:Pallas: The Midas Touch - The Recordings 1998-2007, 9 Disc Box Set https://share.google/ZS2qj3YEnEc7dIKPL

Author John Wenlock-Smith Sunday 5th Julyb2026.