I like the bird chirps and airy pads at the beginning. The piece is pretty slow to progress at first, but the high-pitched piano chords at :30 help fill out the texture in the meantime. A lot of the synths at :58 sound pretty cliche and unpolished, and a lot of the original sound design elements get lost in the mix there, including the pads from the beginning. I actually like the dissonance in the texture at about 1:30, but during that section the drums sound very weak relative to the harmonic instruments. Compressing the drums might help a bit, but you might have to use less reverb on the harmonic instruments too. It sounds like a lot of the synths in here are from Nexus or something, in which case they might come with preset reverb. But you can still mess around with panning, filtering, stereo widening, etc. to avoid distorting the mix this much.
Regardless, the relatively mellow section from about 2:20 to 3:45 provides a nice element of contrast with the hectic texture earlier. I think the texture starts sounding pretty muddy again after that, though, and frankly I’m starting to think that layering multiple of these Nexus (or Nexus-like) instruments on top of each other is not a good idea. The piece is also missing a lot of bass frequencies throughout, and some plugins that don’t have a uniformly legato, ambient style will help balance out the texture a bit.
You do have a lot of good melodic ideas here, though, and I really like that echo-y synth that sounds like a baby wolf’s howl (6:05 and other places). You clearly have a good sense of progression and harmony. Variety in the sound design and a sharper mix would really help take this piece to the next level. Keep at it, MusicBySpektral! ^_^
Mixing, mastering, and balance
.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.25/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.5/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.75/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
1/1
Composite score
6.5/10