THE CROSS & THE CRUCIBLE

One of the United Kingdom's finest symphonic rock bands, Pallas, has released a new hour-long concept album called "The Cross & The Crucible". It confirms why Pallas is one of the leading bands in the genre. It is pompous, well produced, skilfully performed and there are lots of nice melodies and strong choruses.

Musically the band is easily comparable to IQ, Marillion and Pendragon, but while they're just slightly better then IQ and Pendragon, they are much better than Marillion of today. I especially like the lengthy tracks "The Cross & The Crucible", "Towers Of Babble" and "Midas Touch", but also the shortest track "Who's To Blame".

Every Pallas album has its own personality and originality and so has "The Cross & The Crucible". They were once labelled as a neo-progressive rock band, but nowadays that label doesn't do them justice at all. Pallas has cemented their place among the top names in the symphonic rock genre and judging by the strength of their previous albums, they'll probably stay there for a long time.