Never be afraid to sing. I'm still terrified to sing. The music works and the lyrics are not halfway near as bad as you think. It's just that you're putting too many syllables into the Vocals. You know this already, but if you want to sing yah gotta use it as an instrument. That was the dumbest sentence I've ever written, of course you know that, but give your voice a chance to sing instead of just saying the words.

Wooooo I REALLY need to catch up on TL reviews. :D HERE WE GO!

The song may be quite simplistic in parts, but has a TON of charm and some great singing and lyrics! :D Compositionally, it's quite good! Sound quality is... eh... Garageband-y (that familiar bass :P ), but I'm always impressed with the way you can make the most of the limits of Garageband! You've got tons of different instruments and details, and I love all the layering going on in the background during the refrain!

There were also so many awesomely interesting tidbits in your composition. That sudden pause in bass and drums at 0:25, the sustained guitar and organ blasts that slowly lead into an explosive chorus, the guitar solo with slightly sped up tempo at 1:42 (and the transition leading up to it! - the transition out of it is VERY smooth too), all the different instruments that pop in and out of the song as if they were added just for a few specific purposes (lookin' at you, clavicle and electric piano)... and that's just the tip of the iceberg for what I enjoyed XD

Production-wise, you've pretty much nailed the instruments. How do you even master this good in Garageband? From my experience, it's near impossible to get a mix this clean! I always end up adding too much reverb or having instruments that just clash no matter what I do. But your mixing is just so crystal-clear! Well, for the instruments at least - which leads me into the vocal aspect of the song!

I am SO glad you chose to do a song with singing. You've got a ton of talent and a ton of potential! You can definitely carry a tune well, and with a little refining, you could easily grow into a GREAT vocalist! I'm not that qualified to judge your singing, but it did appear to me that you might have benefitted from a higher register of vocals, since it got a liiiittle pitchy in the deeper notes of the song. Also during the chorus, you sound reluctant to sing with the full power of your voice! You're probably recording in a room of a house or something, but if you're ever alone, really unleash that TL beast! :P

Your lyrics are also great. Words-wise, I love all the symbolism you put into the piece XD Rhythm-wise, I feel there are a few places that you could improve the flow of the song. For example, in the lines where you rhyme "flashlight/bright", the flow is slightly disrupted by the fact that you don't end the two rhyming lines with a similar rhythm. When rhyming lines together, it's normally best to finish the rhymes in a similar rhythm, but that doesn't mean you can't end on a different rhythm. You could be adding lots of cool musical elements - perhaps an abrupt transition? Symbolism? Matching a melodic interlude? The possibilities are endless!

TL;DR: great song! Loved it! KEEP SINGING, DUDE! :D

More singing plz! Next time make your voice a little louder in the mix (especially during the chorus), and put some reverb on it and compress it a little. Also don't feel afraid to auto tune your voice until you get to have really good pitch, though you did pretty good pitch-wise.

You did WAY better than what I was expecting for a first go! Keep it up!

RAD. FUCKING. SONG!
I really like the direction of this. The spaghetti western opening is pretty cool. It really sets up a lonesome road feel. The addition of the delay during the verse is fucking perfect. I applaud your bravery in singing. I would never do it. You have a nice voice, though, and I think we could use a little more of it around NewGrounds.

As always, all this stuff I'm about to vomit are thoughts I had while listening, and are things I would consider if I was working on this project. I always consider that approach the most helpful (which you've been extraordinary with btw...thank you!). It's up to you to decide what you'd like to take or leave.

Right at :20 where the drums and bass start, I'd consider layering a chord in the guitar so it really feels like it arrives. The sparse intro builds up a lot of tension and I think making that spot feel like a real landing would help with the forward momentum. If you lean on the whammy bar a bit for that chord or pull it in and out of tune with your fingers you can add some real surf rock/pulp fiction vibes to this which could be cool. It would help glue the song together if you dropped a guitar chord on the down beat of the 1st and 3rd bar of every third bar phrase. Just slow strum it and let it ring over the next bar. That way you can keep the song sparse, but help drive it forward just enough to get to the chorus.

I really wanted the guitar to continue through :50 with the delays. I think having a new musical character for that line specifically was a nice way to tone paint, but the addition of the organ does that already. The delay guitar sort of helps glue all the spaces together. If you ended up doing the bendy guitar chord earlier, it'd be a good opportunity to bring that back again at the down beat at 1:10. It would also help with the build up into the chorus.

I feel like the highs could be equed up a bit in general. I'm being EXTREMELY picky, but the mix feels just a touch dull in some of the non-chorus parts. You could add a tiny (TINY) bit of overdrive distortion to the kick and snare as well. Add a bit more to the kick. In general, when low sounds need to have more punch, distortion does wonders as it will fortify the upper partials of the frequency spectrum which makes low end FEEL fatter without having to actually pull it up in the mix. The snare would get a little more sparkle and smack from the distortion as well. Either that, OR maybe push the drums back in the mix a bit with some subtle reverb? The room sound might help some of the highs ring a bit more. I don't think it needs to go all 80's stadium rock, but a super subtle room reverb barely mixed in will give the impression that the drums are further back in the room. Also, maybe consider playing the hi hat in on a keyboard? The time is insanely consistent as is the velocity which works for awhile, but it starts to stand out after a bit. Playing it in live will give it a little more variance in timing as well as attack.

I really like your vocal delivery. It's morose and a little deadpan (and I mean that in *very* good ways). It sounds like you might have been monitoring your vocals as you were singing in the headphones? When people hear their own voice or instrument RIGHT in their ear, they typically play/sing more hesitantly or quietly because they're not used to hearing the sound coming from a source that closely. I usually mute the playback in whatever I'm laying down and put the headphones on over one ear only so I can hear the instrument or voice more naturally to evoke a more natural performance. Also, if you're using a condenser mic, stand a little further back and project.

I really dig the bass line. Was there a reason you dropped the bass out at 1:20? I feel like it would help fill out the low end if you rock some roots with a more or less regular straight 8th note rhythm.
The call and response synth line is super effective. You nailed it with that.

There are places where you could fatten up the bass by doubling it with sine waves. It wouldn't work for every note, but there are landing spots that I feel could seem more like an arrival if the bass was a bit fatter. Usually I'll use a sine wave an octave or 2 below the bass, and mix it SUPER quietly. You don't want it to be obvious that there's a double happening, but it'll just fill out some of the frequencies in the low end that the bass guitar doesn't cover. This usually works best on long tones. Make the attack long enough so the sine doesn't pop on the attack, but not so long that there's a noticeable morph in the timbre of the bass.

I like the long decay on the keyboard line (sounds almost like a rhodes?) that you start doing at 3:50. I think the two keyboard chords before that could have the same character?

There are really a lot of directions you could go with this song. As soon as I started typing a suggestion, I thought of a lot of other things that could be done with it. That's a sign that you have some really evocative writing! I'd love to hear more like this from you. Nice work!

What is this? Tonal music? And not only that. There's singing too! o.O
Indeed, I did not expect this, especially not while you're still running NGAUC :D

I almost feel tempted to take out my revenge on this track. Alas, I'm too caught up composing for NGADM, and will be the entire week, and I want to review this now.

First off, I'm very glad you found this. This is very entertaining to listen to.
I really like your instrument choices. The bass is great, imo. The other instruments, like the electric guitar and organ are nice too, as are the other things that show up here and there. And I really like the melodies here, as well as the tempo changes. The percussion does its job really well. Some of the instruments could probably have higher quality though. But I actually like the way you mixed this. Apart from the vocals. They feel too dry to me.

The melody for the vocals is good too. Most of the rhythms are also fine, but at the end, they seem a bit... Flat?

Now, in my opinion, the weakest link is the singing. It sounds like to the most part, you're holding back too much. At 0:51, I'm not sure whether it's the singing or the intrument that is out of tune. But one of those two definitely is ;)

And when you sing the refrain, it sounds like you're straining a bit at the high notes. But the draw-back-ness is the thing that could use the most work, I think. Places like "whoah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh" and even part of the verses loose some of their effect because of that. The thing is, occasionally the vocals are fine. But at other parts, they're not. I'm guessing you weren't 100% secure on how to sing this piece when you recorded this?
I also think that some parts could use some raw passion when singing, especially in the refrains. Like, FULL POWER on the final refrain would be amazing :D

But yeah. I'm sure someone will come along to give you better tips when it comes to singing some time later. I can tell you didn't hit every note cleanly, so that could use some work.

Now, for the strongest part of the track. I think it's easily the lyrics! They're great!!
Really. I think they're wonderful.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable listen (or rather, listens, as this is probably my 5th one). I hope you'll do more of these!!!
Great job ;)