PALLAS - "A Song For Tomorrow"

01 / Introduction

Pallas – “A Song For Tomorrow”

After the album “The Dreams Of Men” (2005), things grew a little quieter around Scottish prog veterans Pallas. The departure of Alan Reed, the band’s distinctive voice, certainly played a part in that. The three albums released between 2010 and 2022 consequently went more or less under the radar, but Alan Reed has been back since 2022. And now Pallas present a new album, “A Song For Tomorrow”. With Graeme Murray, Niall Mathewson, Ronnie Brown and, of course, Alan Reed, they are practically back to their 1980s line-up, which promises great things. There are ten songs to hear on this new release, complete with fantastically futuristic artwork by Mike Bentley.

02 / The Songs

Ten Songs in Detail

01 /And Pallas launch into the album in almost characteristic fashion, with strings, symphonic bombast and powerful drums on “Reset”. Alan Reed’s vocals are restrained as usual, yet still intense, while the song itself is catchy and straightforward. A wonderful guitar passage rounds off this introduction to Pallas’s dark prog.

02 /A short drum roll and another symphonic backdrop usher in “Rage”. Electric piano and uptempo rhythms set this dystopian track in motion. Distorted guitar sounds send it spiralling into a degree of chaos, before a quiet passage with ethereal vocals follows. The ending, however, becomes faster and more disjointed again.

03 /A brief spoken interlude, rather like a department-store announcement, followed by childlike singing turns the title track “A Song For Tomorrow” into a touching, melancholic, ballad-like warmer of the soul. It is richly atmospheric and also offers dark, bombastic elements, including multi-part choral vocals.

04 /A brief telephone tone, and then “The Private Collector” gets under way with a mighty sound and tribal drums. Playful in places, with relaxed vocal lines and harmonious passages, the song floats through Pallas’s prog worlds, richly melodic and bathed in a mystical glow. At over eight minutes, it has quite a bit to say, too.

05–06 /Another typical Pallas number, with a slow opening, melancholic vocals and powerful bombast (“Dirt”), is followed by the quietest piece, “Aspirations”, which also reveals a few ghostly sounds along the way. The acoustic guitar is eloquently fingerpicked here.

07 /“Ruhing Headlong” brings to mind Yes’s slightly poppier phase in the 1980s, not least through its lively, playful passages and vocals. A little unusual in the context of the album, but a pleasant change amid all the palpable intensity of the Pallas sound.

08 /Dark and almost ominous once again, “The Avenue Of Broken Dreams” moves back and forth between quieter melodies and dynamically dense ones. Melodies that sweep majestically through the speakers and delight any prog fan.

09 /“Mother” draws you down into the depths with profound sadness and dramatic moments. You practically share in the suffering, and the goosebumps spreading across your skin can feel a metre thick. Deeply depressive, with symphonic elegies and bombastic elements, it leaves the occasional tear in your eye.

10 /It is a relief, then, that the closing nine-minute track “Inside Outside” lets the listener float through the skies again, as multi-part vocals, lyricism and poetry, slow-moving rhythms and wonderful melodies take turns. With great intensity, Pallas bring their song for tomorrow, as it were, to a close.

03 / Verdict

Pallas Between the Eighties and the Present

“A Song For Tomorrow” is certainly an album that needs several listens before it fully unfolds, but you are immediately drawn under its spell, not least by Alan Reed, and let what you hear sink in. A Pallas prog album from the 1980s that has moved into the modern age and leaves its thoroughly contemporary stamp on the prog rock of 2026.

Dystopian and dark, wonderfully melodic and sensitively melancholic, as well as bombastic and underpinned by an intense mood, the new Pallas album is once again the kind of record you want to hear from the Scots.

Review: Erich