I like the atmosphere at the beginning. The soulful guitar pairs well with the oscillating bass drone. The percussion sample that comes in at :31 sounds good, but I think the pacing of the piece could've been a lot faster there. The atmosphere fades away completely there, and I think that ruined the flow a bit. The piece develops a brighter mood in time, which was nice in its own way. All of a sudden, the percussion sounds more danceable than intimidating. :) I guess my main complaint with the piece is that, especially during the latter 3.5 minutes or so, the only way the texture changes is by the addition/subtraction of instruments. There are certainly some awesome riffs and melodies, like the brass at 2:56. But the piece also didn't really fully capitalize on its potential for phrasing and structural "ebb and flow," which is particularly notable because the beginning part of the piece had so much of that compositional aspect. That said, I've been really tough on you so far. I love the sound design and the blissful mood of the piece. The production is quite strong. The only minor mixing/balance issue I noticed was that the main western-sounding guitar seemed to be struggling for attention in the mix at the final climax (~4:30-5:00). Overall, though, super fun piece. Keep up the good work, AlbeGian! ^_^

I gotta say, I'm really glad you tried the NGUAC with an entry similar to your NGADM. I really enjoyed it, as I am now. One of the best aspects with this is your production quality. Everything is so crisp and clean, but not only that, the composition behind it behind it is really solid too. The only thing I would nitpick on is that while everything sounds so real and present, some of the stuff like your brass VST's I can tell you are trying to enhance their quality a bit by putting a bit too much reverb it sounds like (particularly around 4:36 for example, it may be a string VST too can't quite tell). I think you also made them a little bit too much since they sound like they're crowind the rest of the mix a bit. Ironic that I just criticized the two aspects I think are the best part of the song, but whatever, take it how it is I guess. Lol.

Like I said, I really enjoyed this one and I'm glad you put this in the NGUAC contest too.

This is a really cool track you have here.
I can hear your southern american influences (which I'm familiar with thanks to an awesome band called Angra). In terms of composition this is a cool piece with a lot of cool elements working well together (except for the strings at 2:24, that would have worked better if it was an instrument with a faster attack such as the piano but mixed really quietly just to provide atmosphere).

In terms of production there's a lot of work to do still, I feel like most instruments are set in different rooms/spaces. Your guitar and percussion is mixed as if it's in a studio, the orchestral stuff sounds like it's in a muted hall. This creates a certain amount of cognitive dissonance for the listener as the human brain is built to understand sound placement as a survival response so you need to get better that this.

4:57 - note clashes here. This broke my immersion suddenly and needs to be fixed! The brass is playing in the wrong key.

Over all a lovely piece of music which aims high and nearly reaches it. Good job!