ngadm round 1 review ok
y'know these kinds of tracks with drastic style changes are hard for me to review, cause even though it's tied together with shared melodies it still feels like i'm reviewing two different tracks. the two parts are pretty much equal quality and are both really strong in their own way, but their biggest strengths are the other side's weakness in a way. the vgm section establishes the theme really well and uses pretty decent chippy sounds, but the sounds used are just too basic in comparison to the big drums - was dying for some PWM and more vibrato. but despite being basic they have great articulation which is really lacking later on (2nd lead is too loud and dynamically flat). that 909 snare really needs something behind it too, the 2nd half has way better drum parts and energy.
all faults aside, i was really into this until the vocal chant came in. it's not a bad idea, and it's not sung badly, but the mix is just too midrange heavy. really need to scoop out the 200-600Hz range! there needed to be more voices (either multitracked or cloned) but because of all the power in the midrange there's no real space to fit them in. the end result for me was just too small and kinda dry sounding (even though there's that nice reverb on them) :(
very ambitious track. for all the faults it's a really balanced adventure of a track and the transition in the middle is really well done. great melodies, kinda crap chant part but overall it was enjoyable as heck!
8.2