Customer Reviews

Sentinel

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
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Pallas were one of a handful of bands to emerge from the English neo-progressive rock scene in the early 80's. Although never reaching the level of success that bands like Marillion gained, Pallas did manage to carve out a loyal fan base that remains to this day. Many fans consider "The Sentinel" to be the band's best album and the "Atlantis Suite" section of this album to be their crowning achievement. Indeed for a debut album this was quite impressive at the time. Listening to it again today after all these years, the material does sound very 80's - ish which definitely dates the album a bit. The first few songs are short rockers with the whole second half of the album dealing with the Atlantis theme. Actually I am not really sure where the "concept" part of the album begins and ends since all of the songs don't really seem to fit, but the overall end of the world scenario is present throughout. Highlights include "Eastwest", "March On Atlantis", "Heart Attack" and "Atlantis". A few of the shorter tracks sound as if they were meant to be 80's radio singles and don't fit the rest of the album all that well, but this is a minor criticism. If you like early 80's neo progressive rock this one is essential. If you don't like it this one won't do anything to change your mind.

"the Sentinal" isn't a masterpiece,but at least Pallas were trying to be a progressive rock band during the "dark ages" of this genre.The first cut is a killer and the cover art is very cool...

i read some reviews about this band and decided to check them out. sadly i found them pretty average prog music. are they good? yes. are they competent? sure. do they offer anything different, orginal or above average? no. sad to say, the music industry is flooded with prog bands and their sweeping symphonic sounds. but the industry is saturated with average artists. this is exactly what happened to the "new age" music category. nothing but copy cats of copy cats. don't get me wrong, they guys are alright. if you don't have a lot of prog music or are new to the scene, this would be as good as any place to start. but if you're familiar with the scene and have a lot of discs already, Pallas will have nothing new to offer. sorry.

First released in 1984, "The Sentinel" was produced by Eddie Offord (first producer of Yes in 1972!). The group was formed by Evan Lowson on Lead Vocals, Graeme Murray on Bass, Ronnie Brown on Keyboards, Niall Mathewson on lead Guitar and Derek Forman on Drums.
The music in this album shows a polished group performing a bombastic and pretentiously pompus (based on a mythological concept) Hard rock with light Progressive passages in a "motion picture" oriented format. Although the recording is energetic in the first half of the disc (the songs produced by Offord), the second half resulted boring and un interesting with nothing really to offer to the Heavy rock fan because the keyboards and voices seems to sound above the other instruments, breaking the Hard edge side of a Rock recording... The top tracks of the disc are:
Shock Treatment, Cut And Run, Arrive Alive, Rise And Fall (part I & II) and Atlantis...Good Luck!

PEBOZO MUST HAVE BEEN UNDER "SHOCK TREATMENT" TO DISMISS THIS WONDERFUL CD. THIS CD SURPASSES OTHER NEO PROGGERS SUCH AS MARILLION(SCRIPT FOR A JESTER'S QUEER JUST DIDIN'T DO IT FOR ME). IT IS A SHAME THAT THIS BAND DID NOT GET THE FOLLOWING OR NOTORIETY THAT MARILLION GOT. AT LEAST THIS BAND IS STILL PROGGING AND I'M STILL UNCERTAIN ABOUT MARILLION ALTHOUGH MARBLES WAS PRETTY GOOD. THIS IS A MUST FOR ANYONE SERIOUS ABOUT THEIR PROG.