MOMENT TO MOMENT

After a long period of silence, Pallas returned in the late 90's with a string of solid studio albums. Each of the three studio albums that have so far been released following the band's return to the scene have been followed by live albums. Moment To Moment, available on both CD and DVD as well as in a combined CD/DVD package, is the latest in the line following the most recent studio effort The Dreams Of Men. Though it is very hard to match the live album and DVD called The Blinding Darkness from a few years before, Moment To Moment features mostly different songs which makes this a worthwhile purchase in addition to the much superior The Blinding Darkness. Indeed, only Midas Touch and Cut + Run are featured on both live albums.

While The Dreams Of Men album seems to be the most popular on the site, it is not my personal Pallas favourite. In my opinion, the band peaked with 2001's brilliant The Cross And The Crucible and almost all of the songs from that album made it onto the The Blinding Darkness DVD. Only one song here is taken from that album (the aforementioned Midas Touch) while five songs are taken from The Dreams Of Men. The comeback album, Beat The Drum, is represented with two tracks (Hide & Seek and Fragments Of The Sun) and the band's classic debut is equally represented with two tracks (the aforementioned Cut + Run and Heart Attack). The remaining song, Queen Of The Deep, is an old Pallas number going back to the band's very first official release, 1981's live album Arrive Alive.

In my opinion, hardly any of the songs featured here are among the best ones from their respective original sources. Warriors and Ghostdancers are indeed great songs, and also among the best ones of this live album (even if I prefer the studio versions), but The Bringer Of Dreams which, for me, was the best track from The Dreams Of Men, is not included here. Invincible and The Last Angel are not up to par with the best of Pallas if you ask me and the instrumental Northern Star is nice but, again, better in studio form. Midas Touch is great too, but her we get a slightly truncated version that leaves Moment To Moment with only about eight minutes from The Cross And The Crucible in total. But this is understandable as that album was a conceptual one and should be heard in its entirety. Besides, as I said, most of the songs from that album were already available in live form on the The Blinding Darkness live release. Hide & Seek and Fragments Of The Sun are good, but, again, not the best songs from the album from which they were taken. I could name several other tracks from Beat The Drum that I would have preferred including the excellent title track. They may be excused from ignoring the 1986 album, The Wedge, but the seminal The Sentinel could certainly have been better represented.

Still, this is a good live album and another good Pallas release. However, if you have all of the band's studio albums as well as the excellent live album/DVD The Blinding Darkness you don't really need Moment To Moment.