NGADM Round 2 Reviewz0rz

What I liked:
- Guitar tone was nice and crunchy.
- Some of the riffing was pretty nice to listen to.

What I didn't:
- The entire song felt very methodical, like you were just going through a checklist of things you wanted to do without regard for really pushing the song forward.
- Reuse of some of the melody got really redundant after a while and wasn't really interesting enough to warrant that much repetition.
- By the end of the song, I was quite bored, there wasn't really enough unique material there to warrant a 6 minute submission IMO.
- Vast majority of the song felt very samey.

Overall:
Guitar tone was cool, some of the riffing was well done, but it got redundant through reuse of certain riffs and the vast majority of the song sounded more or less methodical and the same.

6/10

NGADM Round 2 Review

---

I love the mellow vibes that this track gives off! The introduction is quite interesting and to be honest, there were times when I thought I was actually listening to an early rendition of a Metallica song. The 'mellow' levels go off the charts after 3:47 and the addition of the strings was a nice touch. Great job with the mixing by the way, everything is clean and clear and nothing sounds muddled.

The biggest flaw in this track was not about the mixing, progression, or anything of that nature but instead its generic sound. Don't get me wrong, the track was great and I did enjoy listening to the song, but it does have a generic sound; I feel like I have heard it before. There is some repetition due to the choice of similar chords, but nothing too drastic. The transitions, as others have mentioned, lack substance. It is during these transitions that you could have taken time to pull out some more fantastic harmonic work or even added additional strings.

Overall, I enjoyed listening to this track...but I think there is potential for more here, you certainly have the skill. Keep working at it man! :)

Score: 8/10

Hi.

The Good:
-Oh man, the kick and snare REALLY stand out, I'm loving that powerful hit.
-The atmosphere at the beginning is pretty nice, all the reversed effects are sweet.
-The chord progression is very nice.
-Overall mixing is clean, everything is easily heard and the aspects that need to pop out do. Good job here!
-Harmonic lines are well-done, I like them quite a bit.

The Not-So-Good:
-The immediate beginning sounds as if part of the start of the sound file was cut off.
-Transitions need to be worked on. The one at 0:40 sounds out-of-time, after 6 beats rather than the 4/4 time from before. Random measures of 6/4 are cool, but it feels awkward there. Similar for just about all the other transitions.
-After about a minute and a half, I'm getting bored of the piece being the same chords. There needs to be some kind of melody at this point rather than the chords, cool as they are. Changes in the chord progression aren't a melody.
-The ending with the strings feels EXTREMELY out-of-place, where in the world did that come from?

Overall: Score of 7.4/10. The only issues were the lack of a melody and the painful transitions (including the intro and outro), but these are VERY significant issues.

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

As with many of the other tracks this round, this is an improvement over your Round 1 submission, which is so great to hear, because it means you genuinely put effort into delivering better and better content every round, and take the judges' tips/pointers into consideration. Here we have another long, fleshed-out and generally well-structured metal track, but this time with a somewhat more mellow and reflective pace than your Round 1 track. The guitar-playing, while being a bit rhythmically off at times (could be fixed with some simple audio file slicing), was great, and I absolutely love your quieter parts especially. I think you really excel at softer parts in your metal tracks.

That's not to say the heavier parts are bad though! You've got a great-sounding guitar and much nicer drums than in this track's predecessor. Yes I agree with the other reviewers that the kick and snare may stand out too much, but I'm still feeling some good oomph from the drums that do the track justice. The mixing is a definite improvement; still needs some work though. The track is noticeably empty during the heavier parts, and lacks the fullness of a tighter mix. Some of the elements in the track, such as the high strings towards the end, feel a bit unfitting; they're dry and don't blend well with the guitar; I'm not saying remove them, but work on integrating them more. They somewhat taint what would have been a perfectly-executed ending.

Now that the production issues are ironed out, onto the composition issues. Your composition is, as usual, solid, but I felt like the heavier parts lacked an identity; it's as if they were hovering between sounding heavy and sounding emotional, but not quite managing to touch any one of them. To try and be constructive, I'll link to a metal track that I feel nails that "heavy but emotional" vibe - the Cabal Online Desert Scream theme (http://goo.gl/kDLWHz). I advise listening to the whole track (because it's awesome) but the part I'm talking about comes in at 1:16. Finally, some transitions need work - some of the pauses worked, but others (4:17 for instance) felt a bit arbitrary. In addition, 4:43 was a buildup to nothing, and felt really anticlimactic.

Keep working on your mixing, be mindful of transitioning and work more on atmosphere-building in the heavier parts, but man, other than that, this is a good improvement (even if my measly 0.3 upgrade from your previous score may indicate otherwise) and you should be proud of it!

Score: 8/10

This is a really cool song. You can't find a lot of good music around, so it's really awesome that this was made.