Although I agree that the sudden cut of the ambience is a tad startling, I find the rest of the intro is quite pleasing, and the vocal chops combined with dark-sounding synths sounds ominous but the mood change as the LFO filter type synth is brought in is quite a solid contrast. And it just merges into into the buildup! Love the drop, the release of all the dark tension is extremely satisfying. Good job overall, just maybe work on keeping listeners engaged at some points - 02:20 to 02:30 could have been a great segway into another buildup! ;)

Very interesting sound design at the beginning. The ambient noise cuts out really suddenly at :05, which I found to be a bit jarring. A couple of the synths here (especially starting at around :40) sound pretty generic, despite the cool ambiance of the piece. There are quite a few sudden transitions/cutoffs in this piece, among them 1:08, 1:21, 2:03, and 3:53. The experimental nature of the texture is pretty good, although I’d encourage you to avoid so many jarring transitions between hard-hitting breaks and more tranquil harmonic sections. Over time, the track loses its sense of directionality because of the lack of clear structuring. The re-intro at 2:03 had a nice, apprehensive mood, and the little fake-out climax at 2:31 was pretty cool. You clearly have a good sense of rhythm and harmony, but I think the arrangement of the piece doesn’t quite help you out in terms of offering the listener some climatic and conclusive content. The second half of the piece never quite reaches the emotional height of, say, 1:22. As for the mixing, I don’t think it’s quite as bad as you think it is. You might want to consider cutting out some reverb at times and sharpening up the equalizers as much as possible, especially in the low frequency range, but there aren’t too many glaring errors here imo. Overall, I’d say that you need to focus on adding harmonic depth and structuring the piece in a more effective way. That said, I really enjoyed the sound design, atmosphere, and thematic elements of the piece. Keep at it, EXplosion007!

6.5/10

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.5/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.5/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.75/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
1/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.5/1
Composite score
6.5/10