NGAUC Review
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First off, my apologies for the EXTREMELY late review -- but, better late than never!

What worked well:
- Cool effects, well implemented!
- Interesting ideas at play here.
- Nice intro/outro!

What to consider:
- The beat seems off; the kicks/snares/hats have an odd rhythmic vibe.
- 2:52 and onwards (and perhaps just before) clashes with with the rest of the song.
- Subtle, chaotic melody.
- Varied mixing.

The beat, as mentioned above, seems to clash with the rest of the track. As one of the pillars of the song, it makes for an unusual listening experience to hear the melody not correlating with the rhythm. That being said, it certainly does make for an interesting listening experience! The beat at 2:04 - 2:23 would have worked well throughout (with some variations, of course). At 2:52, that chromatic percussion sounds out of tune, the notes don't jive well with the synths.

The melody is a little directionless BUT it doesn't sound bad by any means. The mixing is pretty good here, though there are times where things could use some adjusting. Take what you hear at 1:08 for example, the background synth seems a little overpowering. Some volume adjustments, along with some frequency reduction and equalizing on the low-end would help! The same goes for 2:41 - 3:20.

I think if you worked on the structure of the song a little, and tidied up the mix in certain parts of the song, this would shine that much more! Keep at it! :)

Score: 7.7/10

So, you've made it to the final round. You've clearly proven yourself. Time to judge by NGADM standards - scoring will be harsher as a result. In any case, here are some pointers for improvement.

The Good:
-This is quite the odd introduction. I like the gating on the noise there. Also liking the chord progressions.
-Oooh, watery wobbly SFX around 0:45 onward. I really like watery FX. You sly devil.
-Very nice reverse effect leading into 1:30.

The Not-so-good:
-The drums and melody in the intro are a bit weird there. The melody mainly seems fairly directionless.
-Around 1:08 onward the mixing gets fairly muddy there, simply because there's too much. Try a bit of EQing with a spectrometer.
-1:30 seems extremely out of place and in a completely different idea than the previous section. At around 1:50 it seems to become clear that it *is* from a different piece. In fact, it sounds very much out of tune with the chord progressions.
-Muddy mixing and more out-of-tune chimes around 3 minutes in.

Final score: 8.4/10. I had a bit of a hard time deciding on this score. However, it's very unique and interesting. I liked it a lot. If the mixing and the out-of-tune sections were fixed up this would be an extremely solid piece of music for the contest. Good work!

In my opinion the fade-in technique is a little lazy as an approach to intros. That said, I thought the synths and beats were refreshing and cool. The melodies are innovative without being all-over-the-place, although I did think they could've been a bit more up-front in the mix. The minimalistic drop at :48 seemed a bit out-of-place, although admittedly it did sound pretty unique and creative. Still, this piece starts to have some serious coherence problems at 1:30. That melody might've functioned well as a breakdown later on in the piece, but you need to keep the listener structurally grounded and 1:30 was a step in the wrong direction IMO. I can discern some repeated sections, such as 2:24, but I think you could've done more to tie this piece together structurally. Otherwise, it's kind of confusing to listen to and/or seems to lack direction. I also thought that the ending of this piece didn't sound conclusive enough. This is a really original soundscape you've got here, and I really admire your sense of harmony. The production quality is also very good. However, I want you to think more about the way you structure your pieces. A casual listener should be able to discern the basic structural components of your piece, and the energy/emotion/drama of the piece should be channeled by structural changes. This is why the verse/chorus-based structure works so well in pop. The artist creates contrast between the verse and the chorus so that the emotion-driven intensity of the chorus gives the listener a sort of "high," which the verse then resets so it can happen again. However, I can't discern a repeated chorus in this piece, and the one repeated section that's easy to discern (:48) almost feels like a bridge or breakdown. I'm not saying you have to conform to the verse-chorus structure, but I want you to realize that the structures of most songs are relatively simple and easy-to-follow. You can (and should) vary several aspects of your song's texture between different choruses or verses, but with this piece I honestly found it hard to tell where you wanted the emotional highs and lows to occur for the listener. I've spent enough time talking about that, though. Overall, this is a cool piece that just needs a lot more structural consideration IMO. I'd encourage you to keep working on it (after the contest, of course). It has a lot of potential. I love a lot of the synths and textures here. ;)

7.5/10