I like the warm pads at the beginning. The grainy bass at :25 isn’t my favorite instrument, and the distorted vocals on the off-beats at :38 sound a bit tinny. The drop at :52 is pretty catchy, but also pretty generic given the sound design and structure. You could also use a smoother transition into 1:19. I like the hip-hop-inspired snare at 1:45. I also think you start overusing the stop-start transitions (like at 2:09) after a while. My favorite aspect of the piece is probably the production quality - everything sounds crisp, loud, and clear in the mix throughout. I also think it was a good idea to end the piece with the more energetic section at 3:17. Overall, the piece is catchy and has a lot of cool compositional details, but the sound design could sound more polished and the arrangement less disjointed. Still, you really showed off your strong sense of rhythm and harmony with this one. Keep at it, ShadowFox! ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
2/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.5/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.5/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.5/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
7.5/10

holy shit, that album art slappeth

36, we appear to be attempting to achieve analog warmth. I think I would like a bit of that high end fuzz rolled off from your bass, not so that it is gone, but so that the harsher elements don't cover up your leads and other filter play. I also feel like hard compression could have waited for a drop.

At 1:07 the compression is brick walled it seems, to the point it is hard to make out the kick and the result is that the drop sounds flat. A grittier kick transient may have helped here.

Snare at 1:53 is a bit too high in the mix and probably could benefit from lo passing. Same at 2:16.

2:30, the drop again sounds kind of flat. There is no real low mid or high mid substance, and the bass itself is not unpleasant, but does not fill the space. Left to right panning by hand for individual notes could have kept things interesting.

I praise your writing throughout and your melodic themes. The dnb bit at the last is nice. I wish that would have kept on to the outro for one more repetition. The current outro is a bit abrupt and unexpected.

Mix wise the final drop is starting to blow out from levels being too high pre compressor. The bass is quite loud, snare is quite up, and the leads are mostly centered or panned without a slapback in the opposite channel. They are also so quiet as to sound almost dry? Which is a shame because they are very well written. I would have liked to hear those chords pushed hard and sidechained to the kick and snare.

Otherwise, great work. Keep doing what you do!

so good

like you forgot how to do dubstep xddd