I like the crisp drums at the beginning and the gritty guitars shortly thereafter. The breathy vocals add some nice texture to the mix, but it’s a little hard to make out the lyrics. Upon reading them, though, I really like the dark content. The melodic riff at :32 is really catchy, but I think the refrain at :42 would’ve been a little more effective if the vocals had a little more substance in them. The intricate rhythmic content at 1:20 is nice, and the groovy bridge at 2:10 came just in time since I was itching for a break from the verse-chorus structure. The riff at 2:27 is super neat, and flows really well into the verse riff at 2:46. At some point, it might’ve been nice to hear some more structural variety that had some more pronounced changes in the energy level, dynamics, or atmosphere of the piece. Still, you nailed the instrumentation, rhythmic content, production, and mood with this one, and the modulation at 3:25 is a nice touch to hit the piece home. Keep it up, TSRBand! ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
2/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1.25/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.75/2
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?)
.75/1
Composite score
8.75/10

Guitar is sweet on that right channel. I'd like a little less low mid and perhaps drive on the left, just keep it a little cleaner. I feel the guitars are a couple dB too loud for the drums and vocal to sustain.

Vocal tone itself is good. I just can't hear it at all in the mix.

I'd apply some saturation to your snare and kick. There is a plugin called KSHMR Essentials Kick available free that has really impressed me with its ability to compress, saturate, and handle transients and width all in one go. I highly recommend trying it on any percussion instrument.

I'm not able to really understand the solo in the middle as anything other than perhaps even being in the wrong key -- but since it's so nicely time locked and sounds nice on its face I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say it's intentional. It's confident and clean. That's what matters.

So relistening, talking about levels, I'd bring your guitars down by as much as 2 to 3 dB, compress your drums, maybe space out your cymbals further left and right, cut down any reverbs you have going on slightly as its a bit muddy. If by then the bass is sticking out as too loud to your ears, you can move that down in increments of .2 dB or something, pull up the vocals likewise... there's a plugin called spreader that may help you in this regard to get a wide, spacious sound -- I really like your diction btw, at this level, without clear enunciation, I wouldn't hear ANY of your vocals. Speaking from personal experience, this is a problem a lot of metal producers tend to have. We focus so much on the distortion and rocking out that we don't pay attention to the most distinctive instrument of rage we have, our voices, and go ear-dead from knowing our own lyrics well enough to pick them out in a mix, whereas others might not.

So all in all, head bobbing, foot tapping jam. Enjoyed from start to finish. Been a longtime fan of yours as well, and happy to see your improvement over the years. Look forward to seeing more from you :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

-Official NGUAC 2020 Final Round Review-

Despite the beginning with the electric guitar panned to the right, which I’m not fond of, after both guitars come in, the track jumps at super high stakes. The technical department is flawless, with an extremely polished balance between guitars and drums; the chord progression is quite interesting as well, not too repetitive and quite captivative, keeps the interest vivid and constant. I struggled a bit to hear the vocals without reading the lyrics, but they are mixed well so it’s not that big of a deal. Even if I don’t listen to Heavy Metal quite often, I can say this piece has a really high quality; it adapts pretty well on both headphones and speakers, proving itself even more solid than expected. Really good job for this final round, this submission rocks!

Originality: 2/2
Composition: 1.9/2
Structure: 2/2
Tecnicity: 1.6/2
Impact: 2/2
Total: 9.5/10

And now I see what you meant by something special. This is so groovy. Good luck in the competition and keep up the awesome. :)

cool metal jam. these vocals sound insane with the layers. can't describe it.