It is with great regret that I must tell you that I am no longer a member of Pallas.

This is not a situation of my desire or choosing. I have been unceremoniously informed that the other members of the band have unanimously decided to sack me. This has happened without prior warning or discussion.

The purported reason is an alleged lack of commitment on my part to the band and the forthcoming album. My external activities with other projects is cited in support of this.

I can only express my sadness that I will no longer be part of the Pallas story. The new album was/is shaping up to be a good one, and I was looking forward to participating fully in it.

I take extreme exception to the suggestion that I was not committed to the band. As I'm sure anyone who knows me will testify, I've been passionate about Pallas since I first joined 25 years ago. I've also been very active in the organisation of the band on many levels.

I can't begin to say how angry and hurt I feel at the way this has been done. We've all been through a lot together over the years, and I've always considered every member of the band and crew a close personal friend. I'd like to say that I wish Graeme, Niall, Ronnie and Colin the best of luck without me - but as you will understand, such Machiavellian treatment leaves a bitter taste. However, I am not and never have been vengeful, and perhaps in the fullness of time we'll speak again.. But this is a betrayal that is not easily forgiven.

As for my own future, it's too early to say. I had not anticipated this, and was expecting a full programme of Pallas-related activity over the next year. Whatever my next move is, it's likely to sound very different. I hope you will continue to offer me the same support and friendship that I have enjoyed up until now.

Alan Reed

Today is a sad day. Playing in a band is like being in a marriage, only there are five partners instead of two. It is complicated. No one goes into a marriage expecting to get divorced. Alan has been a member of Pallas for many years, but the sad inescapable truth is that Alan, and the other members of the band have slowly drifted apart over the last couple of years.

No one set out with the intention that this should happen. It just has. It is partly due to the geographical problems of living at opposite ends of the UK. Alan has been unable to attend a Pallas rehearsal in the last five years, and writing music together when you are 500 miles apart is difficult. Sometimes people just grow apart as their ideas and interests change. During the last set of UK gigs Alan did not travel with the rest of the band members and barely spoke to any of the rest of the band during the two days we were together. There was no discussion about the new album, no laughs with the rest of us. It was all very uncomfortable. None of us have had any communication from Alan since the Peel. At a time when we are starting to record a new album that seemed very odd.

Yesterday was a very sad day for me. It fell on me on behalf of the rest of the band to tell Alan that we wanted a divorce. Nothing Machiavellian, nothing gutless, nothing underhand, nothing vindictive. There is no good time to tell someone something like this. There is no good way to tell someone something like this. We are all very sad, and I, and the guys, knew how hurt Alan would be, understandably, but the fact is the relationship had broken down, to a point where we wanted a divorce.

The reason we play in Pallas is for the enjoyment and for the love of the music. If we are not enjoying it then there is no point and the band would simply die, like a loveless marriage. We were not enjoying the fact that the relationship had broken down. I don’t propose to discuss the breakdown its not appropriate, it just happened. It’s sad.

Pallas will continue. We continue to work on XXV, and it will come out later this year. We will be touring, We will be playing at Progeny, We look forward to seeing you all and hopefully to your ongoing support.

We wish Alan well. There is no ill will on our part and we are sure that Alan will be fronting another band before long, and we look forward to that. We would like to remain friends.

I had asked Alan to call me today after our call yesterday. He was very angry on the phone and I totally understand that. I had hoped that I could talk to him today and explain some of these things to him personally before any announcement was made about the situation. Unfortunately, I am having to say them publicly. I hope this helps balance the equation and that it may give an insight into the other side of this unhappy story.

On behalf of the members of Pallas,
Graeme

This special "unplugged" and intimate two man show is unlike any the two have performed, solo or with others, and we eagerly look forward to meeting you there.

The tour begins in April and the following dates are already booked:

April 01: Lakewood Civic Auditorium, Lakewood, OH
April 02: Keswick Theater, Glenside, PA
April 03: Ridgefield Play House, Ridgefield, CT - SOLD OUT
April 06: The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
April 08: Nokia Theatre Times Square, New York, NY
April 09: Theatre at Westbury, Westbury, NY
April 10: New Bedford, MA Zeiteron Performing Arts Center
April 13: Montreal QC Place des Arts
April 16: Milwaukee WI Potawatomi Casino/Northern Lights Theatre
April 17: Merrillville IN Star Plaza Theatre
April 18: Indianapolis IN Murat Theatre at the Murat Centre
April 25: Los Angeles, CA Orpheum Theatre

Welcome back...to the show that never ends. We promise surprises and personal moments and a memorable evening that you will never forget.

The Winter's End Festival, which takes place at The Space, Stroud on 13th and 14th March is delighted to announce that the line up is now complete with the addition of IO Earth and singer songwriter Lou Richardson to Sundays schedule.

Festival organiser Stephen Lambe takes up the story: “After their show-stopping set at Summers End last year, we are delighted to welcome IO Earth back to Gloucestershire. Expect a mixture of guitar-led instrumentals and dynamic, emotional song writing.

I caught a great set from Lou Richardson at Greenbelt last summer, and thought her very imaginative use of loops and effects seemed well suited to a Prog audience, so I’m delighted she has agreed to play a 30 minute mid afternoon set for us.”

We are proud to announce that Galahad have been invited to co-headline, with Touchstone, and close the Winters End Festival at The Space in Stroud on Sunday 14th March 2010. We are looking forward to attending and playing at what promises to be a great little festival. Hope to see a good few of you there!

Thomas Tripp – Christchuch, UK – Sunday 21 March 2010 - a local Galagig for a cahnge which happens to coincide with Roy’s birthday …but we won’t tell you how old he will be, answers on a postcard, ha!!

Terra Incognita Festival – Quebec, Canada 15/16 May 2010 - this is the sixth Terra Incognita festival to be held in the beautiful, historic city of Quebec. The festival is held over 2 days on Saturday15th May (when Galahad will be playing) and on Sunday 16th May. Other acts appearing are Discipline, Claire Vezina and Atréal.

And of course don’t forget the 25th anniversary gig at Mr Kyps in Poole on Saturday 10 July 2010, which will be a blast!!

Somewhere end Q3, beginning Q4 2010, Classic Melodic Rock band Beyond The Labyrinth will release their 3rd album, "Chapter III-Stories".


Beyond The Labyrinth - "Chapter III - Stories" is based on an original "Work In Progress" concept : it is first released single by single as the songs are finished, only regrouping the tracks onto a CD once it is completed.

4 songs (2 singles) have already been released this way :

• "Saturation Point" and "Hypersensitive" (released September 2009)
  
• "Hidden Agenda" and "Stories Waiting To Be Told" (released December 2009)
  
• 3 more singles are planned throughout the first half of 2010.

All singles are available through iTunes as well as through the store on the band's website, both as a download including artwork and as numbered, Limited Edition Gatefold single including a Certificate Of Authenticity.

Fans purchasing a copy of all singles in gatefold version will receive their name in the CD booklet and will be able to purchase the full album through the store on the band's website.

10T Records is proud to announce the release of the brand new full length CD release by FROM.UZ, entitled “Seventh Story” on February 15, 2010.  This will be the Uzbekistan-based band’s 3rd official release on 10T Records.

FROM.UZ lit up the prog and fusion scene with their previous two releases, consistently garnering spots on critics’ top 10 lists and drawing comparisons to such stalwarts as Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report and Liquid Tension Experiment. Reenergized with a fresh new lineup of world-class musicians, FROM.UZ returns with a new selection of intensely melodic hard prog-rock fusion. On “Seventh Story”, FROM.UZ continues in the musical direction they have already established, while simultaneously stretching into adventurous new territory.

Vitaly Popeloff (guitars) and Albert Khalmurzaev (keyboards), the compositional core of the original band, remain on board to guide the musical direction. New are Igor Elizov (grand piano & keyboards), Ali Izmailov (percussion) and Sur'at Kasimov (bass). The music has become broader in its dimension through both new instrumentation (grand piano, xylophone & tubular bells), and the addition of vocals for the first time, supplied by Popeloff himself, with Elizov and Khalmurzaev singing backing vocals.

  “FROM.UZ is a band with whom we are honored to be associated,” says label president Steve Carroll.  “Anyone who enjoyed either of their previous releases will be thrilled by this new material. The core FROM.UZ sound is in full force, but with an epic sweep and melodicism that exceeds their previous efforts.”

Selected tracks from “Seventh Story” are immediately available to preview in their entirety on the following 10T Records web page.

Additionally, “Seventh Story” is available for immediate shipping to distributors and pre-sales are now being taken.  All pre-sales will ship prior to the official release date of February 9, 2010.  

On Sunday January 10th 2010 After The Silence experienced the very first gig as a renewed band, during Live-Aid Rotterdam, together with the bands Hessa, Van Beukenstein and The Loo. Live-Aid is a benefit concert on behalf of the Calais refugees. Location of the show happened to be in De Baroeg in Rotterdam, so for ATS drummer Ron it was a gig by which a little wish became true, because as a born Rotterdammer he always had the desire to play at De Baroeg once. We enjoyed the good atmosphere very much, the food for which was very well taken care of, the very nice people, the good tasting beer (very important also!) and of course our show! In despite of the bad weather because of the snow the venue was very nice crowded. For the ones who missed the show for some reason or for the ones who'd like to enjoy our show once again; there are several videoclips available at www.youtube.com/user/afterthesilence123. Pictures we also will add online very soon, but in the meantime you can also watch pictures in the Blokhut picture gallery or watch pictures at afterthesilencerocks.hyves.nl.

A year and a half after its originally targeted release date, the debut CD by the international prog/fusion project Relocator was finally released this week. The complex yet melodic and accessible mix of progressive metal and fusion is elevated by the contributions of special guest star Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater, Planet X, Yngwie Malmsteen, Billy Idol) who recorded all the keyboard parts for the album.

The eight tracks featured on the CD endured several personnel changes and even a complete break-up of the band before the final group of musicians featured on the album came together. "After the band fell apart in late 2008, I was about to give up on the material," says guitarist and main composer Stefan Artwin. "But the idea to revive Relocator as a project instead of as a regular band turned out to be the right one - in one year we managed to accomplish what previous Relocator lineups had failed to do in four years."

The new Relocator project reunited Artwin with bassist Michael Pruchnicki, one of the band's original founders: "Michael was the one who kept pushing me to finish the songs and release them after the band's break-up. He got both Frank (Tinge, drummer) and Bartek (Strycharski, electric violinist) involved and ended up co-producing the album." Tinge, whose main band is the Dutch hard rock quartet Superbug, has already been called "the perfect drummer for this kind of music" in an early review and Strycharski's violin has proven an important acoustic element nicely complementing the album's spacey prog metal/fusion style.

In addition to this core group of musicians, the album features the blistering solos and impressive modern synthesizer sounds of special guest star Derek Sherinian, known for his work with Dream Theater, Planet X, Yngwie Malmsteen and Billy Idol as well as a string of exciting solo albums featuring some of the world's best guitarists. He is featured on keyboards throughout the entire 61-minute Relocator album.

The full album is available in streaming format on the Relocator MySpace page.

We are very happy to announce that on Saturday, January 16th, British band DeeExpus received “Best New Band of 2009” at the Classic Rock Society’s Band of the Year Awards!! This prestigious award summarizes the band’s hard work on getting a recognition both by music fans and press in the past year.

Andy Ditchfield: "We are incredibly proud and honoured to have won //Best New Band// of 2009 at the Classic Rock Societies Band of the Year Awards and would really like to thank all who voted for us. We are made up :) 2009 has been our first full year as a band and what a baptism of fire it’s been. We played our first ever gig on 24th Jan 2009 and in Feb were whisked off to shoot a DVD in Poland where we played with RPWL. We've played Cambridge Rock Festival with Manning and Tinyfish (and Asia, The Quireboys, Uriah Heep, Touchstone etc) Rotherham Rocks with Pendragon, toured with Touchstone and have been confirmed to play Rosfest 2010 in May. We've had review after review of "Half Way Home" and "Far From Home" all of which have been amazingly positive and sometimes positively amazing!! (…) See you ALL a bit later in the year!”


(left-right): Gordon Giltrap, Andy Ditchfield, Henry Rogers, Ian Raine
Photo courtesy of Chris Walkden of Classic Rock Society
This talented band from Durham has so far released one studio album entitled "Half Way Home" but with their superb performance at the first edition of Prog Rock Festival at the Wyspianski Theatre in Katowice, Poland (released in mid 2009 on “Far From Home” DVD), they proved that they do have much to say on the prog rock scene. Currently, the band is writing and recording the follow up to their debut album. The new material entitled "King of Number 33" is scheduled for the release later this year.

DeeExpus first DVD "Far From Home" was released by Metal Mind Productions in July 2009 in 3 different formats: DVD, limited DVD+CD edition, including bonus audio CD with songs recorded during the gig at the theatre, and CD digipak. For full info please go to: www.deeexpus.com

Kamelot returns to the USA this September for a new North American tour. Mark your calendars now, and don't forget to visit the pre-sales link at the bottom of the list for some special ticket packages!

All dates below have Leaves' Eyes and Blackguard as our opening act.

9/8/2010 House of Blues Lake Buena Vista - 1490 E. Buena Vista Dr. Lake Buena Vista FL
9/10/2010 ProgPower USA - Center Stage - Atlanta, GA
9/11/2010 Jaxx Nightclub - 6355 Rolling Road West Springfield VA
9/14/2010 The Trocadero - 1003 Arch Street Philadelphia PA
9/15/2010 Nokia Theatre - 1515 Broadway New York NY
9/17/2010 The Palladium - 261 Main St. Worcester MA
9/18/2010 Club Soda 1225 St - Laurent Blvd - Montreal QUE Canada
9/19/2010 The Opera House - 735 Queen Street East Toronto OT
9/21/2010 Peabody's - 2083 E 21 St Cleveland OH
9/22/2010 The Rave - 2401 West Wisconsin Ave. Milwaukee Wis
9/24/2010 Logan Square Auditorium - 1035 North Western Ave Chicago Ill
9/25/2010 First Avenue Loop Station - 701 First Ave North Minneapolis MN
9/27/2010 Bluebird Theater - 3317 E Colfax Ave. Denver CO
10/1/2010 House of Blues Sunset Strip - 8430 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood CA
10/2/2010 House of Blues San Diego - 1055 5th Ave. San Diego CA

In other Kamelot news, Swedish singer Elize Ryd has been chosen for the female singer spot on Kamelot's upcoming tour in support of their new CD due out in Spring/Summer 2010. She joins a prestigious line of guest singers to tour with Kamelot over the years. You may also know Elize from the band Amaranthe, welcome aboard!!

In related news, Kamelot has chosen to work with the artist Seth Siro Anton for the new album cover of the new record that is near completion.

Threshold will release their cover of the Muse song Supermassive Black Hole as a digital single on Jan 29 (UK Jan 31, US Feb 2). The single's B-side will be Slipstream (vocoder version), a previously unreleased mix of the opening song from the album Dead Reckoning.

Commented Threshold keyboard player Richard West: "Supermassive Black Hole' was such a huge hit for Muse, it's become a modern classic and it's still in the top ten of the U.K. rock charts after 150 weeks! I hope Muse enjoy Threshold's reworking of their song; we've stayed fairly true to the original but with some added Threshold heaviness."

The cover version was originally released as a bonus track on the special edition digipack version of Dead Reckoning, but has only now been made available as a full digital release.

In other news

Threshold have released a deluxe version of their latest album Dead Reckoning on iTunes on 25th January. The eighteen track digital release includes both vocal and instrumental versions of all nine songs, marking the first time Threshold have made instrumental versions of their music available.

Our new album "Satellite" was released on 25th January 2010 and you can read DPRP's review of Satellite HERE which received a DPRP recommended tag!

So, if you’ve enjoyed ‘Satellite’, the album, or want to find out more then make a date to hear the songs as they were meant to be heard -LIVE! Malcolm Dome of Classic Rock in his review of our last gig at The Peel said that it was “a tremendous night” from a band with “the indefinable hallmark of emerging greatness” and who are we to disagree! So come and savour the live Panic Room experience - you won't be disappointed! Panic Room are playing live on the following dates:

PANIC ROOM LIVE
March 6th (Sat) – The Duchess, York
March 13th (Sat) – The Flowerpot, Derby
March 25th (Thurs) – The 12 Bar, Swindon
March 27th (Sat) – The Peel, Kingston
March 28th (Sun) – The Robin 2, Bilston
April 30th (Fri) – St.David’s Hall, Cardiff
May 25th (Sat) – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London (Supporting WISHBONE ASH)

NB. Support for our headline gigs is the marvellous Chris Johnson of Parade (and ex. Fish/Mostly Autumn) who will be performing solo acoustic.

Although not fully recovered Tommy White will occupy the drumseat again for Cirrha Niva. Of course we are very happy to play with him again and to present you Cirrha Niva on its best. A big thanks goes out to Eelco van der Meer from Dutch melodic metalband Ethereal. Eelco helped us on drums out in the meantime. Full details about the concert can be found HERE.