Reviews for Flashbacks

[Step]

This is an NGADM Round 1 Review.

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Hm, while I like the atmosphere you've created, I'm afraid this really doesn't impress me much. It's pretty much a repetitive background with some seemingly improvised guitar notes over it. This feels rushed and not as intricate as it could've been. Your audition track is incredible; I even downloaded it, but this just sounds sub-par compared to it.

The aspects of this track that I like are the mixing, atmosphere and percussion, which I think were all done well. You haven't got many instruments so the mixing wasn't too hard, I presume, but still, I've got to credit you for making everything sound so clear. Atmosphere-wise, you've set a pretty dreamy mood with the long spaced-out guitar notes and distorted hat/shaker line. Speaking of the percussion, it was really good; probably one of my favourite aspects of the track. I think it could definitely do with more gradual layering of drum sounds, also 2:27's drum kit doesn't fit much and the percussion desperately needs variety, but it sounds very good and has a lot of potential.

Unfortunately, those are all the positive notes I can say about this track. A lot of this track is just repetition and the only thing that stops it from getting all-out boring is the varied nature of the guitar notes, which weren't anything awe-inspiring in terms of composition either. The track just doesn't feel like it has a clear direction and sounds pretty dull throughout.

To fix this, you'll need to vary the drums and pad a lot more, and add many more instruments in the mix. A more structured compositional approach would be appreciated too. Right now, like I said, the guitar almost sounds improvised and there aren't that many melodic phrases that stand out. The track needs more intricacy in both composition and instrumentation. Lastly, the ending is very disappointing. It just plays a crash cymbal and stops, rather than actually having a form of outro that leads up to a satisfying ending note.

Overall, this is a decent ambient track, but it just lacks in variation and intricacy. Composition-wise, it's not spectacular either. Sorry, I'm afraid it's a low score from me on this one.

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SCORE:
5.5/10

[Buoy]

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