Pallas – A Song for Tomorrow | Progressive Rock Central.com

“A Song for Tomorrow,” is the ninth studio album by the Scottish progressive rock band Pallas. It is an amazing album and may be their best album besides “The Sentinel.” The album will be released on October 30, 2026, through Esoteric Antenna / Cherry Red Records.

Pallas is made up of members: Alan Reed, on lead vocals; Niall Mathewson, on lead guitars, and backing vocals; Graeme Murray, on bass and backing vocals; and Ronnie Brown, on keyboards and backing vocals. They also include guest vocalist Natasha O’Neal on the title track.

“A Song for Tomorrow,” is an album for today. It captures the desperate, and melancholy times we exist within. With global wars, political change, personal isolation, mental health and medical issues affecting many, and the constant erosion of the Earth’s ecology. It is a lot to try to understand and mentally process. When you can capture that affect in an album and particularly in the title song, it makes your band a master of composition. This album is a reflection of that ability from one of the UK’s legendary bands.

So, let’s get started:

“Reset,” opens up with grand orchestration and supreme musicianship, as all epic albums should, begin. Pallas starts with strings, then the entire orchestra sound builds to create a movie like soundscape. The guitars, bass, and drums from the band join in as the melody builds louder. Then, all four vocalists participate in singing the verses. The first verse begins, “Waking up, it’s another day. Another day like no other. Before black sun sucking up the sky. Look outside, run and hide. On the ground the flock are waiting. Waiting out for a sign of the times. Some indication of a new beginning. Trumpets sounding, angels are singing. Only the meek shall inherit. Nobody is chosen on merit.” The Apocalypse filling your ears with fear. Imagine waking up to this nightmare. An incredible way to open an epic album.

“Rage,” opens with thunder and more apocalyptic orchestration, including bells. It is very stirring music. Then, Ronnie Brown plays piano and sound effects fill the air. Guitar, bass, and drums roar forward to present this full-on ‘rush for your throat’ sound. There are sound effects of people screaming and crying out, as well as city sounds of chaos and destruction. The lead electric guitar solos and riffs are incredible and supported well with some awesome bass chords and drums. Then, sudden clam, and the vocalists sing, “Far away, in a peaceful land people smile. Extend a hand in the calm of the storm. Feel the love. Feel the warmth. But rage is at the door.” The chaos and destruction continue anew, with some supreme bass chords and those angelic keyboards I remember from “The Sentinel.”

The title track “A Song for Tomorrow,” opens within an airport or train station. The announcer calls “final call for departures.” Then, to bring full meaning and depth of emotion to this title track, Natasha O’Neal sings, in her child’s voice, “This is a song for tomorrow. If tomorrow ever comes. The world has changed nothing’s the same. Hold on to our mortal remains. We cry and scream. Lost hopes and dreams. We never find a way. Love see me now. Feel me now. I will carry on. Love this is a song for tomorrow. If you care we can find a new way. Lies are truth, fiction is fact. We hold on to our mortal remains. We cry and scream lost hopes and dreams. It’s hard to find our way. Love proof of life. Hard to find we just carry on. Love, fear us, and know that we’re watching and waiting for you, to go away.” All vocalists join in as the song moves towards its end, forming a choir. The keyboards almost sound like a bagpipe salute. A very ominous and melancholic song indeed.

“The Private Collector,” opens with bold orchestration, along with electric guitar, bass, and drums. A soft drum pattern begins, taking me back to the sounds of Phil Collins’ solo albums. The electric guitar rips placed in between the beats, are excellent. Then, soft piano and drums play as the vocalists sing, “Silent butterflies pinned to the air. Frozen in time they fly. Keys to your soul. Yesterday’s photographs cast to the sky. They fly away. I am the collector. We search and we find the private collector. One of my kind. Fields of lavender. Blackmail and hate. Kept side by side in the sky. All that you know. And all that you are. All you will ever be willingly conveyed. I am the collector. Made by your hand. You gave me your soul. I meet your demands. But now there’s something knocking at your door. You have no secrets anymore.” A very ominous and dark song lyrically, about the creep of modern technology represented by the Internet and AI. The softer melody somewhat mitigates the bite of the wolf.

“Dirt,” opens with soft percussion, strings, keyboards and background orchestration. A song that may be a symbol of the decay we have allowed on Earth, as we chase after money and consumer fulfillment. The vocalists sing, “Over the land and over the sea. I feel the storm is coming in. Comin’ down on me each time. It’s a little worse is it. A warning or maybe a curse. Taking shelter underground. Hope tomorrow I’ll be found. The winds are howling now. Oh, we shelter from the storm. Breaking branch and breaking bough. Oh, keeping safe and keeping warm. It’s a sign of things to come. Fate is not yet done with us. Did we do this to our world? Every day and every night. Never listening for the signs. We will not see what’s in plain sight. Head in sand. Because of money. Welcome to the end of times. While the powers that rule us all, argue over the metal rain. Deaf and blind to the screams for help. They care little for our pain. They would give this world away. For another filthy dime. And they sell their souls for an ounce of gold.” The guitar solos and riffs are absolutely amazing and their sound adds to the catastrophic and dystopian soundscape. Another ominous warning.

“Aspirations,” opens quietly with keyboards and then soft electric guitar. Then, the vocalist sing, “Happy smiling people reaching for the sky. Inner darkest secrets kept inside. Feel the morning sun. It takes away the pain. Happy smiling people begin to climb. Happy smiling people climbing all the way. Following their rainbows closer every day. Down comes the rain. To wash away their burning aspirations. All of the leaves have fallen. Covering the path and all of the dreams, hopes and schemes. Fading in the past.” Another sad song, filled with great acoustic guitar playing and soft choir vocals. The overwhelming sound of the haunting cinematic orchestra, filled with pronounced strings, fills the soundscape.

“Rushing Headlong,” opens with bright keyboards and what sounds like hope. Then, the massive heavy electric guitar, bass, and drum procession seems to squash that fine moment. The vocalists sing, “Rushing headlong into no future. Lemmings racing for the highest cliff. The blind lead the blind and the deaf lead the deaf. And the dumb-ass politicians never run out of breath. You and me lost in our ocean. Watching the fuss with impunity you and me. Hiding in the shadow. Tuning out the stuff we don’t want to see. Touching the sky to neighbors. Looking for new friends. Spend all our cash on rocket ships. When our planet’s near the end. Rushing headlong into no future. Lemmings, racing for the highest cliff.” A rough look at many of our problems today. Summarized well. The soaring electric guitar solos are magnificent, along with the drumming.

With a title like, “The Avenue of Broken Dreams,” you can guess that this one will open with ominous background orchestration and melancholic music. The vocalists sing, “On the Avenue of Broken Dreams. Where sorrow cries and silence screams. Down by the river of forgotten days. Where time dissolves in shadowed maze. I wandered lost, yet strangely led. Past tortured trees with limbs outspread. There, nestled deep in a twisted tree. A raven’s wing and a twisted key.” Drums and keyboards continue to build the magic of the soundscape. The vocalists return, “I turned the key in my palm. The Earth replied with broken calm. It cracked the land. It split the night unveiling dread, beyond all sight. A fissure formed in darkened air. A gateway carved from deep despair. I glimpsed a realm, not meant for eyes. Where insanity and terror lie. To bed to book to sleep to dream. Nothings ever as it seems. Within the chaos of my mind. Rest is hard to find. Yet in the world of dreams. A sudden truth we sing. Fear and fate are always young. Am I in heaven, or is this hell?” With the title, you knew this was not going to be an uplifting track, but the electric guitar playing will put a smile on your face.

There is a music video which supports the song, “Mother,” and it is as sad to watch as the song is to hear. The music opens with soft bells and ominous orchestration. Alan Reed sings, “Mother, where did you go? I was so young I was too young to really know. So much, I wished I could say. There will never be another day. To say how I feel. And now you’re gone. Father, where were you when I needed love? Left alone with the sky above. Like a flower in the desert. There’s nothing else that I could do. There’s so much I hate about you. You learn to sink, or swim. We do what we can to follow the plan. Making the most of what little we have. We do what we do we try to be true. But we’re just products of our maker. And now they’re gone. Mother, why did you go? I just have to know. So much left unsaid.” A very difficult but important song to hear. Appreciate people while they are here, and never be afraid to communicate…before it is too late.

“Inside Outside,” the epic closer and album finale, may be the album’s best song. It opens with that familiar “Carpet Crawlers”-” Anyway” -” Lamia,” like piano from Genesis’ “The Lamb,” and it immediately caught my attention. Ronnie Brown brings back the regal keyboard sound that I remember so well from “The Sentinel,” and many other epic Pallas’ albums. In fact, it begins to almost morph into the sound of a pipe organ; which is amongst my favorite instruments and sounds. The choirs rise to help build this immense epic closer. The vocalists sing, “She walks alone. As the light combs the lawn. Flowers in her hands. She is life, she is everything. And in the glass, still like a photograph. A vision of the truth. Locked in the golden rim of time. Inside, outside. Islands lie within dark. Undiscovered inside, outside. Any way the wind breathes silently inside.” (Thank you for taking me back to, “Anyway the wind blows,” from “Bohemian Rhapsody”). The repetition of these lines only made the impression more permanent. Soft acoustic guitar filters through the soundscape leaving unfathomable traces. The vocalists sing, “The room is alive with the heat. And the sighs of the breeze. As it paints a shimmer in the air. And all the while. There is fortune. There is style. Letters tied with bows. Love affairs no one really knows. Inside, outside. Islands lie within dark. Undiscovered, inside, outside. Any way the wind breathes silently.” Then, the softer start is replaced by a harder edge, with electric lead guitar, bass and drums, forming a glorious, instrumental section, complete with background sound effects. The singers return, “What lies in store within the glass. A confrontation with the past. Between the world. And who we are. Beneath the sun. Beneath the stars we build a garden. Neat and tame. And speak the words. And bear the name. A public face. A polished shelf. To show the world. To hide the self. Now the veil is gone. Inside, outside. Any way the wind blows. Inside outside. Anywhere your mind goes.” What an unmitigated show stopper, of an epic ending, to this deep, poetic, cinematic, progressive rock masterpiece.

Pallas’ “A Song for Tomorrow,’ is not only a song for tomorrow, it is another warning of what can come if, as Natasha O’Neal sings, in her child’s voice, “If tomorrow ever comes.” It is a due diligence look at where we are today as a Earthbound community of souls. How do we make changes to save this Earth, and the societies that make this planet their home? This is a deep dive into what is wrong, in an effort to help everyone recognize where we are today, and bring empathy to hopefully change or fix things for the future. So, that there will be a “Song for Tomorrow,” for Natasha, her generation, and generations to come. For me, this album harkens back to some of the themes I remember so well from, “The Sentinel.” This album, is an album for today, and for the protection of tomorrow. It should be on many media outlets’ Top Progressive Rock Album of 2026 lists. Awards for Album Cover Art of the Year, should go out to Mike Bentley, who has been a trusted creator for the band, for years; and truly captured the power of the message of this album perfectly. You do not want to miss this album, this year. But, bring plenty of tissues, if you have any empathy. You’ll need them.

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