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TITLE        : PSYCHIC
NO. OF DISKS : 2
NO. OF SONGS : 8
AUTHORS      : EFFECT

A  selection here of 8 songs, composed by two of Effect's musicians, Hawk and
Deathrow.

The presentation on the disk is, on first impressions, quite favourable, with
the whole disk  sporting a CD Player look. There are a couple of scrollers at
the top of  the screen, using a  simulated LED display. However, it soon goes
steadily downhill  when you try to load  one of the songs. What te disk fails
to tell you is that ALL of the songs are to be found on disk two, so once the
CD Player had  loaded up, you should remove disk 1  and insert disk 2 in your
internal drive.

The  first piece, "Firestorm" by  Hawk, has a very heavy drum beat to it, but
that's  really  all there  is - there's  no real  song there  behind the drum
track.

This is  followed by  "Stealth" by Deathrow. There's absolutely nothing I can
really say about this piece. It's just "there".

Following  on from that is the ridiculously-titled "Hm Hm Di Hm Hm Da", again
composed by Deathrow. This  is a techo/house  track (is there a  difference?)
and as such, I'm  not going to comment on  this one. However, it does feature
some very impressive guitar and saxophone samples.

Next up  is yet another  track by Deathrow, this  time called  "Double Face".
This song isn't too  bad, although it was spoilt  by over-intrusive drums and
I  felt that  a mistake  had been  made when  the composer  was choosing  his
instruments.

The last  piece from  Deathrow is  called "Window  Cleaner" (where  do  these
musicians  come up  with these  names?). This  track starts  of very well and
promises a lot, but it  soon gets bogged down with a repetitive bass line and
choice of instruments.

"Delirium" by  Hawk follows  this, and this  tune is nothing short of boring.
To  make things  worse, the main instrument  used for  the melody, a  sampled
trumpet, soon grates on the ears, promting the listened to load another song.

The next piece  by Hawk, "How Much  Time", is probably the worst on the disk.
All four sound channels seem to be struggling to cope with the  song and they
appear  to be  playing different  tunes! The  only redeeming  feature to this
piece  are  the  sampled  guitar instruments  (by  Bjørn  Lynne, if  I'm  not
mistaken), although these have been over-used by too many musicians.

Finally, is  the unusually-named  "B.R. + F.F." by  Hawk. The  only way I can
describe this is that it is a  failed attempt at a rock song. There  are some
very good  instruments, but there  isn't really a good song  there to back it
all up. When will musicians learn that sampled guitars  rarely work. The only
times I have  heard GOOD guitar  tracks are when  they contain  either a  few
short bars of sampled sound  occasionally or in Bjørn  Lynne's track "Fire On
High" that  features an  acoustic guitar  made up from about a dozen separate
samples.

Overall, this  disk is really  a waste of space  with below average songs and
bland, if unnoffensive presentation.

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