The pulsing orchestral chords and atmospheric details at the beginning are really cool, and the rhythmic content is really compelling here. The compression is a bit over-the-top starting at :31, but the vocal samples work well. The somber piano and atmosphere serves as a nice element of contrast to the gritty breaks. At some point, I would’ve liked to hear a bit more fill in the texture, especially towards the top end of the frequency range. The breakdown with the airy vocals at 1:36 was a good idea, but some more prominent melodic content would probably do more to flesh out the composition here. The pause at 2:24 really threw me off, especially with no reverb or other effects to “carry over” into the next section. The final energetic section at 3:40 helps add some closure to the piece, and the atmospheric and melancholy piano and vocal riffs at the very end help cement the emotional appeal of the piece. Overall, you certainly nailed the mood, atmosphere, and sound design here. The production is also pretty good, although you might need to rein in some of these volume levels at times, like at 3:33, for example. The overwhelmed mix and lack of fill and/or harmonic depth are my main concerns here. Keep at it, SnaresWorks! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.25/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1.25/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.25/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.75/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
7.5/10

this is definitely a gauntlet! love a lot of the sound design in this, and really dig the moment-to-moment craziness that puts this track almost in IDM territory. while i get that the mastering is supposed to be aggressive, the ending really suffers under the weight of limiter settings that only work for songs with a lot of aggressive back and forth in the dynamics. since the last section is always pounding, the end result is unpleasant levels of saturation on *everything* and near constant compression artifacts. you can automate the limiter threshold to drop back here, but honestly it wouldn't be a bad idea to shoot for a lower loudness level overall, since it does get pretty fatiguing to listen to this. cool track in spite of the crippling mastering issues.

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

And one more cool composition! And one more cool composition! Sorry that the ID is seven digits, I wanted to use the track as music in the level in Geometry dash