Click on this link for a 'Flash' version of the album artwork, you drag the corner of the pages and they turn, you can also select different backing tracks based on sections of the album tracks. Flashbook
Click on the tabs below for a track by track breakdown by the band and Mike B of the most recent album, "The Dreams of Men"
The Bringer of Dreams
Sort of a "Welcome to
My Nightmare" kind of thing, lyrically and
musically. A scene-setter for the album as a
whole, with a nice orchestral intro which
builds into this iconoclastic "sturm and
drang". The bottom line is that when you drop
off to sleep you never know where your dreams
will take you. And that's true of life
generally.
Nice Pastoral
orchestral piece by Niall to open the album,
and set the scene of a day gently
slipping into night to lull the listener in to
a dream like state, and then...
pulverise the poor unsupecting
bastards with some PALLAS POWER.!!!! This
track seemed to pick itself as the album
opener. I particularly enjoy the skull
crushing guitar with the walking bass line;
strange combination! I came up with a lyric to
try and "set the scene" for the whole
album. The theme being the many ,varied and
sometimes strange and scary dreams of men, and
OF COURSE WOMEN. I imagined a snake oil
salesman or Ringmaster delivering the opening
vocal to a willing audience inviting them into
our world of Dreams....and nightmares. I think
this track really kicks ass and cant wait to
play it live!
I had written a
short classical piece, just an exercise
in orchestration really, and I played it to
people, they seemed to like it. I took it to
one of our Pallas writing sessions and let the
guys hear it and here it is at the front of
the first track of the new album. As far as I
remember the main riff of Bringer came from
another piece that I took to the band, which
was then called "Angry man". We then developed
the idea a bit further and it grew into
Bringer. I'm personally quite pleased with the
guitar work on this one. I discovered that one
of my guitars has a squeaky wammy bar, and if
you put some modulation delay on this it
sounds quite eerie. I also like the solo
because you’re not sure where the guitar solo
ends and Ronnies synth solo begins.
Niall’s orchestral
arrangement for the opening of this track
remains one of my favourite parts of the whole
album. The rest of the track was pretty much a
team effort built around the seeds of one of
several sketches by Graeme and Niall. We
played this track live a couple of months
before beginning the recording process, which
assisted its development.
We initially played a
version of this at Rotherham that no-one in
the band was happy with, so we took the whole
thing apart in the studio and tried to find
something inspiring with it. Niall decided to
go to Banchory for Cake and Tea, whilst Ronnie
and I tinkered bout with an instrumental idea
in 7/4 until he came back. It sounded really
powerful, so we programmed it all into the
computer and we all liked it. The drum part in
the 7/4 part is quite a complex pattern,
utilising EVERY part of the kit. The pattern
is across the toms whilst maintaining a
pumping Kick and snare part and as the
intensity increases it moves from 7/4 into 4/4
and back, moving from Hi-hat, Ride to China
type as it concludes. This section repeats
again at the end to finish the track off
bombastically.
From the start of the
album being about The Dreams of Men I had
thought about using masks as part of the
metaphor, and had sourced many images and in
that process had come across many venitian
masks and had been doing searches for more. It
was only a few days before I had to have a
cover done in time for the promo copies that I
came across this one which encapsulated so
much more than the Comedy / Tragedy types and
also somehow managed to look remarkably like
some band members! The original image had
parts of all the faces obscured by other masks
and a great deal of photoshopping had to be
done to recreate the true appearance.
Warriors
Graeme originally wrote
this as a take on the 9/11 attacks. I was a
bit uncomfortable with being too specific
about that as I felt that there was more than
one way to interpret the motivations of the
guys that carried it out; and also that
suicide bombings are an issue in many
circumstances other than that one dramatic
attack in New York (the recent London attacks
just go to underline this). So I've tried to
make it a little less specific - although it
can still be read that way. The heavy middle
section screams out "classic Pallas" to me.
Heavy, powerful and emotional. I'm
particularly proud of the vocals in the "the
girl wipes the sleep.." section. It really
builds nicely from a warm, sleepy delivery to
the all-out "Death comes on silver wings..".
There's a power and control there I've not
often managed to get on a recording..
Now here's a track that
was born in typical Pallas fashion. I cant
quite recall what came first here but a quick
look on the old computershows several ideas
came together to form Warriors. Niall had his
ripping opening riff that he played in a
moment of metal weakness. He should have known
better because we leapt on him and insisted we
use it on the album despite his protests. Ron
had a slow idea we had called "Rons Sweeny"
which we sped up and used the chords for the
chorus . I had a couple of bits; the opening
chords with a fantastic gritty organ sound
from the Motif over which we fitted Nialls
riff, and the fast middle section with the
bass riff and big big voices melody. Chuck it
all in the Pallas jamming machine and the
track came together.
Lyrically we felt the song had a very violent and martial feel. somehow the quiet mid section called up a very vivid memory I had from watching 9/11 unfold and seeing that plane in the clear blue sky . I had the "Death comes on silver wings" part of the lyric first and developed the rest of the lyric from there. There were obvious concerns from the rest of the guys due to the subject matter, and whether it was appropriate "to go there". A few lines were changed to soften things a bit, but I really fought for this one as I feel very strongly about the subject matter.
I seem to remember that
this began with the guitar riff at the
beginning and some how we managed to squeeze
the Sweeney theme in there. Its sometimes
difficult to not make these tracks to literal
but the "silver wings" line gives it a rather
definite context.
This came together from
jamming – a combination of everyone’s ideas. I
think it will be great to play live.
We argued amongst
ourselves about the additional instrumental
intro section that was added to this. I
suppose we would miss it now if someone stole
it! The instrumental section in the middle is
a very powerful part, where I use the crash
cymbal as a ride, followed by a jungle type
tom pattern then straight into the end
section. This part was a Jam which we all
really liked with with a kind of Yes-ish feel
to it and has some more intricate drumming on
it.
Extending the mask
metaphor here with a montage of a set of
graphics which I think compliment the track
rather well. I think that the intro gtr motif
to this track is probably the most debated 20
seconds on any Pallas album !!
Ghostdancers
This is
about how one man's dream can be another man's
nightmare. It takes the example of the celtic
disapora to the Americas (among other places)
as how the achievement of one aim can displace
another. Many Scots left these shores out of
desperation and found themselves successful in
the new world - the archetype of the American
Dream. But that dream had a sour edge for many
of the peoples already living there. For me it
also carries a little poke at what America now
stands for in the world - That there's a
maggot in the apple which they're not prepared
to face up to.
I sat down
in my music room one evening as often happens
when we are in writing mode, in an effort to
create something for the new album. Some
nights nothing worthwhile happens, but on this
particular night within half an hour I had
laid down the verse and chorus sections of
this track,
sounds and all, and thats how it went down on the album. It felt very haunting and Celtic. It was a real buzz when the other guys heard the rough idea as everyone was excited about it. Niall and Ron put the mid 8 together as I recall within a half hour. I had the first three verses of lyric and the first chorus for sometime before thrashing out the last verse in collaboration with Alan. All in all this track came together very smoothly. The addition of Pauls violin playing simply took the atmospheric feel up another level in my book as did Nialls wonderful solo work.I have to say that I'm enormously proud of this song and cant help feeling that it could be a classic if it received enough exposure.
Graeme had
written this haunting tune that was and still
is one of my favourite tunes to date. I must
confess that for me, it always conjured up the
picture of Connan the barbarian, riding across
a bleak and unspoilt landscape but as the
story began to take shape this obviously
changed. The middle guitar solo actually came
from a tune called Slojazz that I had written
several years earlier.
Anyone
analysing my contribution to the Pallas effort
would probably be surprised to learn how much
I love songs (not all Pallas compositions fit
with my understanding of what constitutes a
song). This magnificent song evolved from
another of Graeme’s sketches. My involvement?
I helped to ‘articulate’ some of the chords to
make them slightly more palatable than they
might otherwise have ended up being. Paul’s
violin work is gorgeous, and is completely at
home with the overall dynamic. I’m very proud
of the way this has turned out
I wonder if
Pallas fans would tolerate a whole album of
songs sometime in the future? Please say
yes!
The secret
behind this was to keep it simple and
uncluttered to let it breathe whilst still
providing a powerful drum part. Niall's 1st
solo is fantastic and really inspired my part.
I think it was my idea to lengthen the end a
bit for more guitar solo. The drum sound it
perfect for the song and really adds to the
songs overall power. Oh yeah, the violin is
great too.
The night
we finished the compilation of the album and
took home the finished product for the first
time I took a detour to make my journey last
the length of the album. I had to stop the car
at the 'middle eight' of this song as I
couldn't see the road for tears! ( The endings
of Invincible and Last Angel had the same
effect ) I think this is the strongest 'song'
the band has ever recorded, and that was
before Paul came along and added the violin
part! The artwork leaves the mask metaphor for
a bit and is a simple reflection of the
transatlantic journey that the song
represents.
Too Close to The Sun
A bugger
to write and sing. I put off doing this one
for months. Trying to count to eleven when
you're sustaining at full volume is one of the
most difficult things this singer's ever had
to do in the studio :-) This is another of
those tracks where Graeme and I were unable to
come up with a complete version of a song, but
individually we came up with different ideas
that meshed together. In this case Graeme had
pulled together a verse/bridge section and I
had a middle and an ending. In fact we both
had a middle and we thought it'd be
interesting to put both of them on - and it
works!
Ah Ronnie,
what a guy he is!! We had had a meeting in the
studio to whittle down our pool of ideas and
to focus on what would make it thro' to
preproduction and become tracks on the new
album. I recall Ron in his painfully modest
way saying "I've got this idea but I dinna ken
if its ony good". He then played a tape of
what is now this track to us. It was of course
PROGTASTIC. I love it. I was always an ELP fan
as a lad and there's a lot of wonderful
Emersonesque moments here. The rest of us were
certainly left with plenty to get our teeth
into after Ron and Denise departed on their
travels round the world, with the complex
timing changes here.(Colin called Ron names
I've never heard before) Alan and I combined our separate lyrical ideas to good effect here with an excellent team effort. I wanted a German voice for Einstein but was overuled as being "too cheesy". No sense of humour this lot. Now this track has for me, one of the best guitar solos,Niall has ever recorded. I just want you to know that it was played grudgingly at gunpoint with Mike B. and I threatening him with death!! Niall was angry as he wanted to keep it folky and to feature his "3 stringed thing".( He gets his way on the bonus disk).
Originally
called Ron's 11; 8 this was a hard one to do
for me. Because it was an almost complete
piece featuring mostly keyboards, and it was
always a problem to known just how much guitar
to put in without standing all over Ron's
intricate key work. I had, for a long time,
wanted to record my little Thai 3 string
guitar which I was at last, able to use on the
middle section do think this turned out rather
well.
This is
pretty much my main contribution to the album
– with the exception of the vocals. (For
anyone that doesn’t get out much), the main
themes are largely written in 11/8 – a fab
time signature that lends itself to the use of
unusually extended melodic phrases that
wouldn’t sit nearly as nicely in common time.
It’s a remarkably inspirational time domain to
write in – the melodies almost write
themselves once the first few notes arrive.
The guys wrote and added the lyrics in my
absence, taking the piece to a slightly
different place than I had first had in mind.
Still though – I’m quite pleased at where it’s
ended up.
This was
originally called 11/8 because.............it
is in 11/8, although the intro isn't. I cold
have killed Ronnie for this (he wrote it), the
time signature changes 16 times in the intro
section and was a real Bastard to count (as
the bonus disc will prove). It also does it
again in the middle of the song but is
different (the swine!)! However, the rest of
the song is pretty straightforward apart from
the fact it is in 11! There are some nice wee
tight bits with the drums and guitars. Nialls
solo in the middle is great, hence the sparse
parts during the solo. A Pallas
classic.
The track
formerly known as 11:8, then the Dreams of
Men, an honour it shared with Ghostdancers
introduces the other recurring motif in the
design process, that of angels and flight,
though the 'old mannie' apparently looks more
like Bobby Charlton than Icarus! Despite it's
formerly eponymous time signature this track
reminds me in part of Insomniac meets Tower of
Babble. Probably the most 'proggy' track the
band has done. Oh and we never did entitle a
track the Dreams of Men after all
that!Messiah
Graeme and
I are very different in our political views,
which can often make writing something we're
both happy with a bit of a challenge. However,
I immediately warmed to this idea of the
control-freak political leader. It's kind of a
dig at Tony Blair, but it applies to pretty
much any self-satisfied political or social
leader. Anything they say needs to be taken
with a healthy pinch of salt. I think the soul
choir's a nice touch - If we ever did a video
I'd like to portray TB, GWB and OBL as gangsta
rap types with loads of bling (lots of gold,
girls and a huge Hummer) .. All style and no
substance.
I spoke
earlier about how sometimes musical ideas just
happen and sometimes they dont, well on this
night they did. Mike B had given Niall and I a
real rollicking for getting bogged down, and
not getting any of the tracks finished. I had
watched our esteemed Prime Minister lie his
way thro' a tricky press conference on TV just
before going to the studio and had a lyric
brewing about "political ambition "and the
dream of "power". Got to studio.. compulsory
cup of tea....brief chat with Niall over
general concept....Picked up bass...Niall
picked up guitar....three hours later we had a
rough backing track with verse and cracking
chorus, and guitar solo in the bag. We were
very smug, as we knew Mike would be at the
studio the following day. JESUS, what a row we
got for starting another new idea instead of
finishing the ones we had already. Anyway I
love this. Its a bit like Sledgehammer meets
City Of Love, with the humour of Big Time.
Hope you guys like it.
I remember
Graeme and I sitting in the studio one night
and Graeme saying that he wished there was a
punchier track on the album with the sort of
riff that goes something like this....daa daa
dee......daa daa dee etc and the track was
born.
.
This was
created in my absence. "I’m liking
it!"
Not very
Pallasy, but very rocky, powerful and precise.
It was decided that the groove was the most
important thing in this one, sort of
Zeppelinesque, with straightforward fills.
Although during the first guitar solo, we
throw in a single bar of 5/4 to keep it
interesting. The middle section (with Tabla
etc) has a great almost Bonhamesque groove and
moves into a real Hendrixsy feel at the end
with swirling cymbals and fills etc and less
that 5 minutes long!
And after
reading all the above you'd never know that
this features a stunning contribution from
some 'Stroppy Divas' on backing vocals! This
track, nay song, is not as much as departure
from things Pallas as may first seem as it is
undoubtedly a cousin of Dinosaur, why not
check that out by getting the newly released
archive DVD Live From London! The image used
for the booklet was a cert the moment I saw
it, took a great deal of finding, then another
by the same photographer cropped up and found
its way onto Mr Wolfe. Reading Graemes
comments you'll know why the album was late
...again ;-)
Northern Star
We played
this at Rotherham and Nearfest last year. At
the time we were figuring out how to develop
it into a song, but good sense prevailed and
we decided to leave it as an instrumental.
Beautiful. And with the best drumming Colin's
ever done :-).
The Dream
here is "the dream of home" when you may find
your self on faraway shores. I close my eyes
and see the snow gently falling in the fields
and hills around the studio. This is soooo
evocative of our little corner of the planet.
This is a gorgeous little piece which will
afford Colin, Alan and I the luxury of a nice
brew up at side of stage whilst on tour. You
can never have too much tea. Tough tittie
Niall and Ron...get the kettle on G.C. Dear
Boy"!
This was
one of those special moments, like "Blood and
Roses", between Ron and my self were Ron
played a chord and I played a tune and the
song just wrote itself in about 15 mins.
Done...
In four
minutes and two seconds, Niall and I
simultaneously brought this piece into
existence. Not a note, chord or sound has been
altered from the original performance. Cool,
eh?
Some would
say, my best drum part EVER!
I tasked
the band to write these comments and they did
so without reference to each other whilst
doing it. So it took either 15 or 4 minutes to
write but definitely shows of Colin to his
best, tee hee! Simple track, simple artwork,
sorted ! Mr Wolfe
I love
this. Dark, violent and distinctly nasty. It's
a bit more spiky than our usual fare, but
perhaps a taste of other things to come.
Lyrically it's a tale of the invisible men who
seem to run the world - not always with our
best interests at heart..
Now Mr
Wolfe is not a nice chap massively wealthy ,a
ruthless gambler who plays with people as
chips. Are you a lamb or a wolf? This was
Ron's other main piece for the album. He wrote
that wonderful piano line on the intro..love
the menacing feel. Of course I couldnt resist
the challenge of using it as a bass
line....."Fool of a Took!!!" Rule no 2. Dont
adapt keyboard sequences as bass parts!! The
fingers on my left hand now have muscles like
Popeyes arms. In the studio I could record the
song in segments but live...Oh Jooly dee
..lets wait and see. I love the imagery of the
lyric, and am very pleased with a rather hooky
chorus. Look out for the "Shepherds Pie" remix
of this on the bonus disk. It kicks
Ass.!
I love
this. Dark, violent and distinctly nasty. It’s
another one of Ron's tunes. I will look
forward to seeing Graeme doing this live...!!!
I really enjoyed doing the guitar solo. It’s
really quite different for me and sounds a bit
punk.
This is my
other main contribution. It started life with
the working title ‘The Silent Witness’. I’d
like to think I wasn’t influenced at all by
Muse, but I’d only just recently begun my love
affair with their music. I think I prefer the
less ‘gothic’ version on the second disk – its
a little closer to where I hoped it would end
up.
Kind of a
bit like Muse, quite a modern thing for
us......... Straight forward basic rock drum
part, kicking arse. Lots of tom fills locked
into the keyboard and Bass
parts!
What's the
time !.
Invincible
"I am not
a number - I am a free man" was the phrase
from the 60's TV show "The Prisoner", and that
pretty much sums up what this is about. It's
the story of an attempt at rebellion from the
day-to-day grind of modern life, where it
seems everyone else has power over you and
freewill is increasingly limited. This is not
the life you would have chosen for yourself.
Why should you put up with it? This is one of
those places that it seemed right and proper
to use more of Graeme's voice. It's one of the
unusual strengths we have as a band that we
effectively have two vocalists at our
disposal. The mid and end sections really
leant themselves to Graeme's voice, so we went
with it.
Niall has
little black book with his poems in. Most are
very strange! (Dont go there) I was looking
for inspiration for subject matter for
Invincible,and one line leapt out at me, "it's
my life and you cant have it!" This rang a
bell for me.I knew exactly where that was
coming from. I was a big fan of 1984, a great
visionary book. I have felt like I have been
living on Airstrip One for quite a few years
now. CCTV everywhere, more and more laws, less
freedom of expression ,out of control
political correctness, A NANNY STATE. Big
Brother s cheesy grin, spin, spin , lies and
spin , Live to work. I think you get the feel.
Lyrically this is an homage to 1984. The dream is of TRUE LOVE. It can get you thro' anything!! I had hit on the great hammer sound when messing on the keyboard. The intro chords followed. I was looking for an relentless industrial feel. Please excuse the ham acting for "the eater of souls" vocal. Gave us all a laugh in the studio. Great powerhouse drums from my "thunder brother" Much band jamming to develop the music. Nice example on the bonus disk as to how little musical ideas can grow into big themes. I had a very sweet melody sequence on my computer which we dismantled and turned into a Big PALLAS finish for the end section of this track. A BIG FAVOURITE.
I remember
showing Graeme a lyric that I had written and
I think that may have influenced the direction
of this track.
Another
track chiefly born out of jamming – although
credit must go to Graeme for planting many of
the seeds, and for his very personal
lyric.
Intro
section is very staccato, moving into a fluid
drum part that rolls along like a train.
Middle section comes right down with moody
drum and bass part. We wrote this to be really
tight and powerful, yet sparse. This moves
into a big tom rhythm with BIG toms then back
into a verse with a more syncopated drum
pattern which is subtly different from the
earlier verses. The End section in 3/4 is one
of my favourite bits of the album and
strangely was one of the most difficult for me
to come up with a drum part for. It needed to
really build the track and I am really happy
with the resulting part and drum
sound!
In
grandiose style on the special edition we've
split the lyrics into four chapters across two
pages with two seperate sets of artwork. The
first one with the hands grasping a rope
underwater and insets of drowning business men
with a mysterious angel is hopefully
figurative to the lyrics, the second one is my
tipped hat to the work of Storm Thorgesen with
a businessmen breaking free and flying, Mary
Poppins-like to a higher plane.
I have to admit that as many times I have heard this track I still get a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes during the end section, another pull the car over and stop driving moment, with the mother of all inspirational rising chord sequences and glacial soaring guitar this is probably the BIGGEST Pallas Big Ending ever..... unless.......... press the 'next' button!
The Last Angel
What can I
say? I think this is the best track we've ever
done. I love the intimacy of the opening vocal
section, and I think it's the best singing
I've ever done on record. Bizarrely it didn't
take me too long to do. I'd been singing all
day and we'd gone off to get some dinner. I
was pretty knackered and I'd thought we'd just
listen to it a few times so I could get a feel
for it before I tried recording the next day.
But it was late evening, and I thought I'd try
and get a version down anyway, and before we
knew it we had "THE" take in the can. The vibe
was just right. The "God only knows" line
still sends a shiver down my spine every time
I hear it.
The final section had only been
roughly marked out when I put down my vocal,
so imagine my surprise when I heard the final
mix. Pandy's vocal is just breathtaking. Takes
the band to a whole new place.
Magical.
Now some
songs almost seem to write themselves, (see
Messiah, Ghostdancers)...and then there are
those who's birth is...traumatic. This was
traumatic! I had played the guys a demo idea
which had numerous elements of the finished
song over a year ago. We had the concept of
the lyric, tho' not the finished item, and
knew that we wanted to use a female operatic
voice in the track. The song sat part finished
for a loooong time. There was talk of ditching
it and saving it for later, as it seemed to
have stalled. There have been numerous
developemental directions but in the end Niall
and I stripped it bare and went minimalist on
the first half so as to really feature Alans
vocal. With time running out and no BIG end
section(mandatory), desperate measures were
called for, so Colin, Niall and I sallied
forth into the Live Room and jammed an ending
which you can now hear on the album. Pandy
came along and worked very hard on our melody
and Italian lyrics (Thanks to Italian fan
Daniele Castrecane for helping me with
translation) and contributed a phenomenal Diva
performance. I am so glad we persevered with
this because I don't think I've ever heard
anything like this before, by any band ever.
It is so difficult to do anything truly
original these days but, you know, I think
we've done it here!
I would
love to say that we wrote this one as we were
eating breakfast one morning but in all
honesty it took along time to evolve. Pandy's
vocals were great fun to do but trying to get
them balanced with Armageddon in the
background was more fun.
Again,
this was created in my absence – all I
remember was a rough computer sketch that is
now barely recognisable in the completed
piece. This track is a remarkable achievement,
and I would have loved to have been involved
with it (its right up my
alley!
Another
marathon track with multi parts to it. The
drum part becomes interesting as the operatic
voice is introduced. I am playing a syncopated
rhythm around the cymbals with both hands,
which then is pushed along by a driving kick
drum, I then turn this into a very syncopated
rhythm that straightens out into a real
pushing rock part which drives the song along.
We then decided that I should let myself go at
the key change or "outro" part of the song. So
I open out a bit to the fade out.
The album
was a long toil, but hopefully worthwhile. I
think it is the best one yet for playing and
musicality. Time to
gig........
Probably
the longest gestation period of any track the
band have done, the initial inspiration came
very early in the writing period, its sketch
was programmed and forgotten about, well they
forgot to work on it, and many times I asked
how it was getting on and got a non committal
response. In fact I got as far as saying the
album would be ok without it... (what a fool!)
Suddenly, as if by magic, a few nights of concentrated effort saw the ending fall into shape and a passing opera singer, you'd by surprised who just passes by the studio, got roped into the act. Et voila! Another tear shedding moment to add to the Pallas canon! Which is just as well as I'd selected the gorgeous angelesque image a year before the track was finally completed.
As Ronnie returned after the main disc went to press but before the bonus disc was complied he had a chance to tinkle the ivories with a remix version! Oh and we sincerely hope that the committee that was involved with the Italian translation got it right!
