I like the upbeat mood at the beginning. The string samples sound pretty fake, but I like the crisp drums and clean mix. The spoken word vocals don’t quite work for me, though - I think part of the problem is that they aren’t calibrated to the beat very well. Have you tried quantizing the recording to the beat in your DAW? The lyrics themselves are really good, with a fun rhyme scheme and some evocative imagery. The instrumental track could use some more variety. In particular, it’s missing some bass tones, and some additional harmonies or instruments would be welcome. At times, the mix gets a bit distorted, probably because it’s too loud. The little staticky blips you can hear at 1:45 and other places are a good indicator of that. Most DAWs have some sort of gauge on the mixer that turns red if the audio output is getting overwhelmed by the signal - it’s called “clipping,” and it’s definitely something you want to avoid. That said, the guitar solo at around the 3-minute mark was a good idea, and the repetition of the chorus at the end helped give the piece a good sense of closure. Overall, I think the composition is what could use the most help here. The vocals could use some more careful editing, and the instrumental track isn’t really making use of the bottom part of the frequency range. Still, the upbeat mood, energy, lyrics, and rhythmic content are all pretty good. Keep at it, R0botSqu1d! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.75/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
.25/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.5/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.5/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
0/1
Composite score
3.5/10

i think it's really sweet of you to dedicate a song to your friends. personally, i would probably just keep it as a gesture between me and them and not share it with the whole entire internet, because that would make it more special to me. you seem pretty deep into this so i figure i can't levy any criticism against your musicianship that you haven't heard before. i will say, as a professional audio engineer, that the choice to record the built-in speaker of the keyboard you're using strikes me as a bit odd - if it has a headphone jack you can probably frankenstein a guitar lead and some kind of adapter into a usable cable to record a clean line-out at the very least. if you haven't already, you could try using effects like compression and reverb to make your vocals sound more interesting i guess. you do you though, pal. hope you continue to improve in the future.

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

It's certainly a great gift for your friend, great ⊂ (・ ▽ ・ ⊂)just watch out for saturation haha.

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