I like the cutesy harmonies at the beginning and the smooth guitar and rich atmosphere. The drums are pretty loud at first, but once some of the other harmonies fill in the texture around them, they sit nicely in the mix. I really like the sound design, btw, especially that woodwind instrument at :57 that almost sounds like a mellow train whistle. The heavily compressed guitar riff at 1:22 sounds really cool, and the filtering on the drums at 1:43 was also well-done. The arrangement feels a tad choppy during the middle section, and the harmonies are a tad dissonant briefly at around 2:13 and again at 2:28. The disjointed glitches at 2:35 or so also didn’t really work for me - it seems like the middle section of the piece was dragging on for a tad too long by that point, and overall the piece seems to lack a point of arrival and/or conclusion towards the end. It felt like the emotional height of the piece came at around the 1-minute mark, which didn’t leave much room for that sense of arrival later on. That said, I really admire the production quality, sound design, atmosphere, and harmonic structure of this piece overall. Strong work, Samlrc! ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
2/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.5/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
1/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
1/1
Composite score
9/10

this is so nice and pretty! lots of detail in the instrumentation and production, great melodic and harmonic sense, really nice stereo image and great mixing (mostly!). i think there were some transitional parts that felt a bit like afterthoughts, especially the drawn out bitcrushed arp coming into the final section. like you got bored making the song and just made some random noise - it's fine but just not as exciting as hearing a satisfying build and drop y'know? also the bass elements in this track are overly heavy and clashing a bit. i think you wanna duck the basslines under the amen kick and then maybe even turn them down some. the fuzz bass at the end is especially loud on the lower notes and then falls off on the high note, really you should gently highpass the bass so the high note volume is the volume of the low notes, and then use a clean bassline to fill the space out. otherwise, this track is wonderful!

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