Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.
I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!
Constructive Criticism:
- Hoo boy. This track isn't badly mixed, but it has one BIG exception to that - the distorted electric guitar. That guitar is WAY too noisy and has far too much reverb. Notice how the waveform INSTANTLY explodes outwards whenever this instrument plays even a relatively quiet chord, and further how the details of its strumming are so muted. The volume is because of all the noise in the distortion (it sounds like you added a lot of raw noise to the signal so it sounds more distorted, but it's mixed so loudly that this can be painful to the ears) pumping it up more than it really needs. The reverb, on the other hand, masks the beginning of each note and makes it have less impact. It sounds like you're going for a 'wall of sound' approach, but even in other particularly intense tracks this doesn't drown everything else out. For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8KjwP22x2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw3UygAi2oo Notice how these two tracks achieve their walls of sound - it's actually largely through really tightly mixed DRUMS. (also damn, Fleshgod Apocalypse's drummer is a god hahaha)
- The second major issue is clearly impacted in part by the guitar mixing problem. Especially during your most intense sections, there doesn't sound like there's much of any variation. The guitar is simply playing the same riff over and over again, and while I can sometimes hear other instruments coming in, I can barely tell because they're so drowned out. Even given that, too, listen to those two reference tracks. They show how variation, drum fills, and little additional guitar riffs are used to enhance the really intense sections. (Also, honestly, I'm psyched that I can use them as references for somebody in this contest!)
Compliments to the Composer:
- Underneath the distorted guitar and repeated riffs, you have some REALLY solid foundations, jeez. Varied instruments, the actual melodies and riffs aren't bad by any means, you know how to organize a track to have an interesting story, and have your chord progressions stay interesting too. Even with reverb on a lot of other instruments, it doesn't sound bad (though do be careful with reverb!), it only affects the distorted guitar really intensely. I'd love to hear what you come up with next!
Final score: 6.5
Dadlur 
