Pallas have been around for a good few decades and having a liking for progressive rock as well as my NWOBHM, they are one of those bands over the years which I’ve meant to give some listening time to though not got around to it until now.
On hearing they had released The Messenger recently and noticing it being available from their BandCamp page I duly headed over there and ordered the CD media book version – which arrived promptly.
The artwork is spectacular as is the presentation of the booklet. The music, in my opinion, not so much.
I’ve given it a fair few spins hoping it would be one of those albums which eventually click – however whilst it’s not terrible and has its moments for me it is let down by having a feeling of not flowing too well. The programmed drums are jarring. The downbeat doom and gloom lyrics don’t help.
Sign of the Times is quite a good opener with a chunky atmospheric feel and some nifty guitar work though gets bogged down and loses momentum with the slower section after about five minutes in. Does pick up again towards the end.
The Great Attractor steps it up a bit being a piece of quite biting heavyish prog with a nice hook and melody and more of that nifty guitar.
Fever Pitch starts with a gentle piano based intro merging in to a heavier part which sounds quite promising with a tasty bass line then lets itself down becoming rather restrained and I got the feeling it wants to be heavier wanting to break out without managing it instead becoming too drawn out. The programmed cymbals grated on me.
Heavy Air has another nice bass line otherwise rather slow going nowhere fast. Does not hold the attention and is too long. Have a listen of you like:
The Nine has the spoken word intro developing in to a sort of heavyish proggy atmospheric piece which works well bar the attempts at the “prog rapping” parts. Rescued to some extent by the solo, brief as it is.
The title track clocks in around twelve minutes and should be the epic. I think that’s what Pallas were aiming for and to some extent they manage it – particularly with the more spiky parts.
However the piano and acoustic part slows it down too much and sounds out of place, though it does pick up a bit before the overly long and drawn out choral sounding ending. Makes for a song which does not flow well coming over as rather disjointed and not sure what it wants to be.
This review is just my opinion of course – The Messenger doesn’t work for me. If you think it might for you – check out the Pallas BandCamp page:
https://pallasofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-messenger
Back to New Wave of British Heavy Metal stuff in a few days. The new Saxon album – Hell, Fire and Damnation – is due. Review to follow.