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Reviews for "Flashbacks"

First off (I'm posting this to everyone): Note that the scores might be a bit lower than what's typical for NG reviews - no one should expect a 10/10 unless their entry was absolutely incredible.

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This is perhaps a cliched critique, but it's very clear that this piece doesn't intend to go anywhere - subsequently it doesn't get anywhere. That is okay most of the time, since the background pads and instrumentation you established early on sound pleasant enough. But it becomes painfully obvious during moments like around 2:00, with some very off notes and directionless pitch bending that pretty much sound like bad improvisation. The structure of the song is an extremely slow build-up that starts with a pad, then introduces guitars, flanged shakers and modulated percussion (a seemingly unedited copy of the "Electronic Drum Beat" loop from GarageBand, unfortunately. It's a very widely used loop), and then finally a drum loop ("Natural Drum Kit 09"). The ending is one of the laziest endings I've heard: a weak crash cymbal hit, with no prior warning except there being 8 seconds left of the song.

All in all, I can't imagine that much effort at all has gone into this: after laying down the groundwork with a bland pad (which never changes AT ALL) and adding some unedited percussive loops, it's only a matter of improvising a couple of minor key guitar tracks with no unifying musical idea whatsoever. Its saving grace is that the mix is relatively clear, and the instruments don't clash since their frequency ranges don't overlap too much. That makes it a perfectly listenable piece of ambient music, so I'm aware of how harsh this review must seem, but the song is so thoroughly featureless that I can't see any other judgement being fair.

6 points for sounds and instrumentation.
3 points for composition and melody/harmony.
3 points for theme/originality/other things that might impress.

Overall impression: 4.5

That's some good stuff...

MtM0201 responds:

Thank you!