I love the western theme you went with, this is really cool !
I enjoy the lil' sparkly bells too :)

If you survive that round, just know I'll judge your next entry as I'm finally free to do the judging part, so you better prepare yourself lol

I like the Wild West theme and the soulful trumpet melody at the beginning. The crisp percussion and whistling at :38 are excellent additions to the sound design, although the kick at :42 sounds a tad sub-bassy for a piece like this. The quirky chordal instrument at 1:16 is great - sounds like a rubber band on crack. The rubber band in turn contrasts nicely with the somber breakdown at 1:26. This piece has a great atmospheric appeal, while also having multiple high-energy sections and a good sense of pacing. I love when the main melody goes double-time at 2:37, although later in the piece the harmonic content could use a bit more variety here. Feels like variations on the main melody make up 80%+ of the “foregrounded” element of the texture here, which is not very conducive to holding my engagement after a while. The mixing is indeed a lot better than on “Tower of Tech,” although the composition doesn’t feel nearly as dynamic. Still, you nailed the sound design, progression, atmosphere, and production quality here. Keep it up, Irish-Soul! ^_^

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
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.75/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
1/1
Composite score
8.5/10

Really tricky getting those flubby trumpet articulations in the intro right -- I think taking some reverb off of it and a bit more low end down will assist, as well as manually modulating volume and pan. There are some articulations which sound a bit mechanical on the intro, sections where this instrument is used, etc. The muted bit at 1:45 is better in this regard but also has some rougher hard attacks that could also be tamed with a bit of manual ducking.

I find the western vibe of this to be quite interesting but think throughout the kick and tambourine are quite dry and upfront for the rest of the track to sound so wet and verbed.. I even think the tambourine could come down a lot and have a more obvious slapback delay in the right channel -- or a swung "_--_/" rhythm, where _ is the kick, and -- is tambourine notes similar to "dah-dit", followed by kick, and / represents a longer "dah." Text is woefully difficult to convey this through, but I hope that makes some sense. The tamb backbeat is so out there, it's obvious if it remains samey. It was easier to make out the articulation on it than it was to hear the guitar in the right channel.

Toms also are not offensive in the least, but I think they would benefit from 80's shoegaze to fit in with the rest of the track.

Compositionally however, quite enjoyed this song. Great work!

Really nice track! I think its very well done :D