After releasing a self-produced LP entitled "Arrive Alive" (recorded in Scotland in 1981), Pallas was courted by EMI Records (who had just signed contemporaries Marillion) and went into the recording studio with Yes/Emerson, Lake & Palmer engineer Eddy Offord to record the album that would become "The Sentinel". The plan was that "The Sentinel" would be a recorded version of "The Atlantis Suite", an epic centrepiece of the band's live performances at the time based around a futuristic version of the story of Atlantis, with plenty of references to the Cold War.