Hey Luka, apologies for the late review. My schedule has been hell recently, so I’ll try and keep this short and concise.

Awesome submission this round! Honestly, this track was quite an experience to listen to. Whenever I thought I knew where it was going, you took a sharp turn and did something else.

Looking through the tags, I see that you classified it under Heavy Metal. Listening to the track, I feel like Experimental would fit it better. The average song is around 3 minutes long (at least on Newgrounds), and the first 2 minutes have no major resemblance to the heavy metal genre. This track breaks a lot of the genre norms of heavy metal. I think you’ll find more success with this if you recategorised it. You subvert expectations at every opportunity, which isn’t something metal is known for, but experimental music is infamous for it.

Anyway, enough about the genre and onto what you actually asked for. The variation throughout the track is phenomenal, but mainly in the second half. The second half of the song has such unique and distinct sections which helps retain the listener’s attention.

Though, throughout the piece, I personally would have liked something of a motif or a recurring theme/melody. I think this would have elevated the song a lot in terms of re-listenability and memorability. At the moment it somewhat comes across as a group of ideas put together into one track, instead of a cohesive song which tells a story. The easiest way to have progression in your song is to have a motif and slowly change it as the song goes on. I’ll share a little tip of what I usually do. You start off by introducing the theme as basic somewhat apothegmatic introduction. Then later in the piece, you reintroduce the theme but in a different context and then finally play it again at the end with all the variations you want. Of course, assuming you wanted a more experimental feel, then you don’t have to do this. But it’s my tried-and-true method of progression for a main theme/melody.

Looking back at all the tracks of yours I’ve heard from the previous rounds and even from AIM, you have outstanding skills when it comes to atmosphere. You effortlessly create worlds in your pieces and that’s such a valuable thing to have in your music. I can see this skill reflected a lot in the first half of the song. I honestly quite love the first half because it’s got a somewhat foreign/Middle Eastern flare to it which I think is quite unique. The piano along with the choir makes for something really neat. Unlike the second half which I would classify as experimental, I’d classify the first half as ambient. I could super easily hear this in a very high-budget movie or piece of media.

As its own standalone thing, I think the first half is awesome. However, a critique I’d give is that it doesn’t set the atmosphere for the second half very well. The two kind of sound like two different songs splashed together in the same body of water. They don’t sound related and that messes with pacing quite a bit. As I said earlier, you can make it work if you have a main theme or bold motif. It kind of sounds like the coffee kicked in once you got up to 2 minutes xD

I could only imagine the stress and time crunch all of you have to go through when participating in NGADM. It’s quite impressive making it this far. I’m not sure if I’d have the creative stamina to try something like NGADM. Anyway, I said I was going to try and keep this short, but I utterly failed at that, lol! If I were you, I would go and ask some more judges for their opinions. This piece is quite experimental so it may be valuable to get some other perspectives on it as well.

I wish you and your music the best. You’re gonna go far in your music, mate!

initially gave 4.5 stars but.... The more I listen the more I like this track. I'll vote on you

So epic! Congrats with passing the 1st round of the NGADM!

uh oh it may be a little joever bracket-one-bros...

Okay but seriously incredible work this is super super unique and cool in every way great work bro

WOAH