I like the suspenseful mood at the beginning. The arpeggiated piano is a bit of a cliche, and your vocal and string samples weren’t my favorite. The piece has a good sense of climax int :32. I like the cinematic vibe and constant sense of direction of the piece. The melodic content is gorgeous - sounds very victorious. The low percussion at 1:45 or so sounds a bit indistinct, but overall I thought you did a good job of keeping the texture full and providing a good balance of frequencies. The pacing of the piece is a little fast-paced, and I would’ve liked to see you flesh it out a little more, but at the same time I don’t think I can complain much about the composition in general. Enjoyable piece overall. Keep it up, CloakedSoup! ;)

9/10

I'll sort of write my view as a live commentary as I listen, so excuse me for the disjointed thoughts.

Hitting play... now!

Love the strings in the intro, piano perhaps sounds a bit choppy. Same with the choir. Oooh orchestra! I think it builds quite early on. This almost sounds like a climax. The mix is a bit muddy - check those frequencies - especially at 0:33. The piano stands out quite loud in the mix too. Gorgeous melodies though and really nice arrangement. I love this part at 1 minute. So nice! And at 1:15 especially. 1:40 - another gorgeous part but that piano is very dry and loud in the mix again. 1:50 - these strings are composed very nicely. You're clearly a very talented composer. Oh. It ended. That was abrupt!

Okay so, my main thoughts through listening to this was how lovely your melodies and chord progressions were. Your orchestral arrangement skills really show that you have a lot of incredible ideas and amazing talent. I feel like there is still a lot you have to learn when it comes to mixing though, in order to really heighten the quality of this track. Mostly EQ work - making sure that the track doesn't get muddy. I think that's particularly important in orchestral music, because each family in the orchestra deserves to really shine. I wanna hear that every element of this amazing track come through crisp and clear. The piano at 1:38 - the notes all sound as if they're the same velocity which takes away from the realism of the performance, which is a shame, because there are aspects of this that do sound very realistic. The strings I am particularly impressed with! It's the same for the choir, too. You can hear that it's not a real choir, and despite whatever library you might be using, it's important to pay attention to detail. Solo that choir as you're writing your music, listen to it on loop and ask yourself, does this sound like real people are singing these phrases? If not, why not? From what I can hear, I'd suggest focusing on the transitions between one note to the other, for the choir. When people sing in that way, they don't just go from one note to the next with no rise or fall. Perhaps putting in a slight slide between the notes will improve that!

You've got yourself a new fan. I think whatever reviews you get from the judges on this, take the feedback and apply it to this track again, because this could really be a masterpiece and deserves to shine. Beautiful work.