hEARd

<CENTER>hEARd - http://www.ozemail.com.au/~hmag Non-profit promotion for new music Established - 1994</CENTER> <CENTER><TABLE BORDER=0 WIDTH=100% ><TR ALIGN=RIGHT><TD> By Terry Allen November 1998 </TD></TR></TABLE></CENTER> <img src="http://home.earthlink.net/~challenge/chllng_1.jpg" width="135" height="134"> CHALLENGE - ACOUSTIC UNIVERSE A US based duo whose music takes the form of acoustic based songs that have a great integrity in the songwriting as well as a very strong vocal performance from Allison Lindsay, who alongside Arno Verstappen, has given us an album of 10 songs worth of great stuff to listen to. There's a quieter sort of sound than your average rock album, though the style is still somewhat similar. It took a couple of songs for me to adjust to the band's music, though once I reached "Finding My Way", it was pretty much plain sailing & the production throughout is superb. Pick tracks for me, were "Wake Into Daylight", which is a very impressive number, closer "Don't Look Back" & "The Voice Of Freedom", which are all backed up with a full compliment of band members including a strong element of piano from Wayne Cook & a powerful percussion section courtesy of Toss Panos. The recording date on this album is 1996, so it'll be interesting to see where the band have progressed to in 1998. For more information on Challenge, write to PO Box 36755, Los Angeles, CA 90036, USA or Challenge@earthlink.net </BODY> </HTML>