The synths at the beginning sound a bit gritty and unpolished, but I like the crisp drums and heavy bass that plays on a lot of the downbeats. A lot of your synths sound pretty cheesy, including the lead at :32 - reminds me of a lot of Autogun presets I’ve used myself. You clearly have a good sense of harmony, but the texture itself is pretty minimal and bottom-heavy. The reverb also may have been a tad excessive, especially on some of the bass instruments. Reverb on basses can make the texture of a piece sound really muddy and indistinct, although that isn’t a huge problem here because the texture is so minimal for most of the piece. I like the sense of climax into 2:08, although the mix becomes a bit overwhelmed at that point. I think you need to either adjust the volume levels, tone down the compression, or both. Overall, I enjoyed the rhythmic content, progression, and atmosphere of the piece. I think the composition is a tad underwhelming, and the mix could be both more well-balanced and, during the last minute or so, less distorted. That said, switching out a couple of the samples and dialing back the reverb and compression at times are both pretty simple fixes, and they would both help out this piece a lot IMO. In the meantime, you’ve got a cool and ominous mood and some catchy beats to build on. Keep at it, Deathincan! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.25/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.75/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
.5/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.25/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.5/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.25/1
Composite score
4.5/10

there's a nice synthwavey vibe to this, and there's some unique tones in the synths you're using. overall i think the bass sounds you're using are way too loud compared to the drums and peak out at the wrong frequencies - it's like they want to push in the sub bass area but sit in the low-midrange instead. the mix in last section is very messy and far too loud - turn everything down except the drums here and maybe add a sub layer to that metal-guitar-ish synth to thicken the sound, because it sounds very boxed-in and midrange heavy. would be good if there was more melodic/chord variation in the first 2 minutes, it kind of just sits around the same two notes for the most part and gets very boring.

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