ARRIVE ALIVE
Pallas
•Neo-Prog
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Live, released in 1981 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Arrive Alive (4:17) - Ronnie Brown / keyboards
K7-Granite Wax-GWLP-001-UK-1981 and to Grendelbox for the last updates Edit this entry |
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PALLAS Arrive Alive ratings distribution
(58 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(24%)
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(22%)
Good, but non-essential (33%)
Collectors/fans only (16%)
Poor. Only for completionists (5%)
PALLAS Arrive Alive reviews
Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings
Collaborators/Experts Reviews
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

Not too many clues here as to what was to come from Pallas. The smooth, refined style of their studio albums was still a couple of years away.
The music here is raw, with an almost bootleg like sound to the recordings. There's little prog in the compositions, most of which are simply crowd pleasers.
For the Pallas faithful, an interesting history lesson with which you're probably already familiar. For the rest, stick to the excellent studio albums.
PROG REVIEWER

PROG REVIEWER

This compilation of live & studio tracks is almost a Masterpiece. I've been searching for a long time for such kind of music: the very neo-prog, even proto-neo-prog, right from the beginning of the 80s, like IQ, Twelfth Night & Marillion. Surely, it is poorly produced & recorded. Surely, there is NO perfect musicianship. Surely, they're greatly influenced by hard-rock & new-wave. But this CD contains more energy, emotions, melody & power than some other bands' discographies taken together! It has everything I looked for! I'm more than satisfied! :)
The record opens with a smashing hard-rock hit "Arrive Alive" (studio take), which is simple yet groovy. The next two epics, "5 to 4"&"Queen of the Deep" (both live), have some great parts (I like the second epic more). "Flashpoint" (live) is another hard-rock song, with easy-to-remember chorus...very nice!:) "The Ripper" (live) is the first highlight of the work, highly structured & complex epic. The vocalist's insane laughing (somewhere over 10/11 minutes) scared me so much at the first listen...frightful indeed. It creates the incredible atmosphere of worry & tension. The next one, "Crown of Thorns" (studio), is the second highlight (my favoritest track on the album). Astonishing ballad-like epic, very haunting...just awesome! The best song on the LP to involve the young minds into it's atmodphere. The pre-last song (I've no 9th track on my CD edition) "Paris is burning" (studio) is a proof, that proggers DO know, what good joke is (well...in that time...). Great parody on French chanson, a perfect song for radio !:) The last one ("The Hammer falls") is a rock hit (once again) with a ballad intro. The cover-painting is also perfect - very neo-proggy, yet original & moody. With this album I got the Main Prog Rule: DO NEVER BELIEVE THE OPINIONS 'TILL YOU LISTEN TO THE ALBUM BY YOUR OWN EARS. Recommended!
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator

SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Symphonic Team

This 1981 live album was Pallas' very first release. It is rather unusual for a band to release a live album before having released a studio album first, but it would take Pallas another three years until their studio debut and, at least in my opinion, it wasn't until the late 90's and early 2000's that they reached their musical peak. Pallas is thus a band that needed a very long time to mature musically and the present album is clearly an immature effort. Indeed, there is not much here to indicate the direction the band would later take and only the title track from Arrive Alive survived for the studio debut. Indeed, as far as I know, none of the other songs ever existed in studio form.
A few of the other songs here have been played live by the band in recent times though and The Ripper, Crown Of Thorns and Queen Of The Deep have all been featured on other, more recent, live releases - the former two songs were featured on the 2003 live DVD The Blinding Darkness and the third on the 2009 live album Moment To Moment. These songs stood out on those releases as being inferior to the band's newer material, but comparing the new recordings with these from 1981, it becomes clear that they needed an update. And not only in terms of sound quality!
Pallas had not yet found their direction at this point and the Pallas of Arrive Alive has indeed little to do with the Pallas of Beat The Drum, The Cross And The Crucible and The Dreams Of Men, or, for that matter, the Pallas of The Sentinel. They seem unsure here whether they wanted to be a Prog band or a Punk band! Looking back, we can confirm that they thankfully opted for Prog and the rest is history. Well, I might have been exaggerating a bit with the Punk insinuation; several of the songs are actually, after all, around ten minutes in length and quite ambitious, but the execution is rather rough and the end product a bit raw.
I can recommend this album only for fans and collectors of the band as well as to those with a special interest in the early history of British Neo-Prog or "Proto-Neo-Prog" as one might perhaps call this.
PROG REVIEWER

SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator

The title-track is the only cut recorded in studio and reminding of the band's Symphonic/Punk attitude, a rhythmic piece with aggressive vocals and edgy guitar leads with a few Synth Pop attributes, reminiscent of TWELFTH NIGHT.It appeared later under the title ''Eyes in the night'' on the band's classic debut ''The sentinel''.''Five to four'' was written during the time the band was a four-piece after the departure of Stobbie.The fresh side of Pallas comes in evidence here, a track with a symphonic atmosphere in the rough set of Neo Prog bands, featuring nice guitar solos and an omnipresent Mellotron along with extended instrumental parts and sudden tempo changes, going for a dramatic lyrical outro.Mellotron washes continue with ''Queen of the deep'', a certain live favorite of Pallas fans and a quite complex piece of music, again the mood is towards classic Symphonic Rock with quirky keyboard lines, led by some spacious, orchestral synthesizer, surrounded by an aggressive vocalist and the raw guitar sounds.Very GENESIS-influenced with evolving textures and some great melodies towards the end.''Flashpoint'' is a rather weak and non-sophisticated rocker, even this piece though contains some surprising background Mellotron strings under a powerful guitar performance by Niall Mathewson.The 15-min. ''The ripper'' was a strong reason this live was released, the most favorite of all Pallas tracks at the time and a very good piece of underground Progressive Rock.A YES-meets-PINK FLOYD-meets-GENESIS tour de force with full Mellotron and synth showering, theatrical vocals and very bombastic guitar passages, the reason to set apart Pallas along with TWELFH NIGHT from the other Neo Prog acts of the time, old-school Symphonic Rock meets an 80's Hard/Pop Rock sound.Elaborate instrumental parts combined with angry vocals in an awesome way.The original edition closes with ''Crown of thorns'', which comes a step closer to ''The sentinel'' sound, pretty rhythmic Neo Prog with keyboard interludes, orchestral parts and soft electric guitars along with a more balanced singing performance, fronted by the use of synthesizers and the tapping grooves, fantastic composition.
Of course ''Arrive alive'' was later released on vinyl and fairly won the battle of CD reissues.Extra tracks ''Paris is burning'', ''The hammer falls'' and ''Stranger on the edge of time'' all come from period singles of the band.Run to catch one of these issues, this is raw, extremely passionate and rich 80's Symphonic Rock in the best British tradition, a rare occasion of a Neo Prog band using the Mellotron and a file next to early GALAHAD and TWELFTH NIGHT.Highly recommended.
Latest members reviews
The debut album from Scotland's most successful prog band is a mixture of early neo-prog and hard
rock. The live tracks were recorded in a small bar and have a raw quality, they are the equivalent
of a good bootleg from the era, while the studio tracks lack the polish that a better budget would
h
... (read more)
Report this review (#911694) | Posted by Daysbetween | Saturday, February 9, 2013 | Review Permanlink
I originally bought this album on it's release in cassette form, I also own it on vinyl & cd.
Sadly, due to the recording being somewhat rough & ready, there is no real benefit to the
sound on the cd version. As for the content of the record, well, I could reel off a list of
superlatives that
... (read more)
Report this review (#93776) | Posted by Hacketeer | Sunday, October 8, 2006 | Review Permanlink
Very dodgy production, this is quite a raw recording of the band early in their career. They had already built up an excellent set list and were as us oldies remember a powerful and entertaing live band. Recommended especially for some very atmospheric prog tracks like the Ripper and Queen Of the De
... (read more)
Report this review (#11967) | Posted by | Monday, December 15, 2003 | Review Permanlink
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