THE DREAMS OF MEN

There's a remarkable similarity between this magnum opus by Pallas and the one by Galahad (Empires never last). Both bands have done quite a number of mediocre/palish albums through the years (just my humble opinion by the way) until they suddenly came up with a (near) masterpiece. And in both cases the turnaround is huge and almost unbelievable. Pallas is nevertheless a pretty famous neoband and even one of the founders of the subgenre in the eighties but despite that they never really impressed me with any output.

But this Dreams of Men is a whole different ballgame all over sudden. And it alters my opinion about the band for a big part. As a neo fan it felt always a bit strange not to like this band but they managed to win me over, at least with this release. On the other hand: why come up with this just now ? If able to make something like this, why not more often ? Or is it a case of maturing ? If so, so be it. I'm glad they did, they added another masterpiece to my collection. Contrary to Galahad, whose magnum opus just missed this status, Dreams of Men is the real deal for sure. It's inspired, it's energetic, it's impressive, it's huge in almost every sense of the word.

It's even hard to mention highlights, almost all songs are equally good but I would like to make special notes to the guitar squalls in several of the songs, they gave me shivers down the spine. In the end the rating is not difficult to decide for. It's a downright 5 stars. Even the bonus disc clocking about 74 minutes is very nice. So I can't think of any criticism here. One of the most important and best neo progressive albums ever !