Excellent work on this! And dagnabbit...I was planning to do my next track in 5/4...looks like you sorta beat me to it!

I just want to say congrats to your track. It's great!

This style is not my favorite style, but I do listen to literally everything to learn from everything and Man!, I can listen and learn a lot from this song!
I like the harmonies, the rhythm, the mood, just about everything, and it's quite different from my style and that's why it sound so interesting to me

By the way, I got only 1 really small thing stucked in my mind when my critical thinking turned on:
There are very short (like less then a second) parts that you sing out of tune just a very little bit.
I would correct the pitch on those places, but please don't get me wrong, I think you sing great, and I would be very happy if I would be able to sing just half as you can, although I'm not a singer either :), but only a listener for this time, so I listened and I enjoyed your music very much!

I wish you got into the best 4, and more!

Keep the great work up,
and have a nice day!
~ Sound Galaxy

(Q: What guitar is that finger-picking starting around 0:35? Is it a VST? If so, which one? I'm interested! Thank you! :) )

I love how this is in 5/8. It can be risky to experiment with non-4/4 time signatures, but you definitely rose to the occasion. I really like the organic guitar sound here as well as how smooth-flowing this piece is. Your voice sounds great, and the lyrics are really well-written. The mixing and mastering is fantastic, and I don't see any major (or minor) issues with the balance either. I really liked the structural relief you offered at 1:55, and the guitar solo at 2:47 is awesome. You really gave this piece a sense of direction by increasing the intensity of the lyrics later in the piece. The (Lo-fi effects?) at 3:34 were cool, but I think the piece itself ends a bit suddenly. I will say that I really admire your ability to layer the vocals here (I've tried that in the past, and it can be really hard to get right). Perhaps you could've added a bit more dynamic contrast here or there, but at the same time I really like how this track is mastered "radio-style" (i.e., minimal dynamic contrast, yet still a sufficient amount of structural relief at various points). Besides that, it's quite the uphill battle trying to find things to complain about in this piece. Damn...I think you're the one to beat, my friend! Keep up the great work, Kor-Rune. ;D

9.5/10

WOW. I don't know how big a fan of prog rock you are, or djent, but this is a great addition to the genre of prog rock. I love your "pop prog rock" description of it. Your voice reminds me of Spencer Sotelo from periphery, in your higher more intense register, as well as your falsetto, (which when you did that I was like UNNFF YES). BUT in your lower register, you remind me of Adam Young from Owl City. AND your layering of instruments around your voice is so well done, you dont have your guitar playing around the same range of your voice, which would conflict and muddy the mix, no it seems you thought of this well.

.
This is prog rock to it's core, with happy timbres and melodies. I love this. 5/4 (or 5/8 at this tempo) fits perfect in this genre and you did it well. I noticed other commenting on it seeming like you stumble on the words to catch up to the beat, I however do not notice this, it is just the nature of the time signature to make it seem this way. THOUGH perhaps you couldve planned the rhythms of your vocals to work with this a little better, however I never thought it was a problem.

And Also, me being pretty into theory and all that jazz, the parts where I believe others are commenting you sang out of tune, COULD POSSIBLY only be due to weird voice leading, either in your guitar, or voice where you jump to the "odd" pitch within the chord without leading TO that pitch from a near and adjacent pitch from the PREVIOUS chord. If that makes sense. in other words, thhhere are some neat chords you do in there (maybe some neapolitan chords?), maybe try to make your harmonic progression clearrer with some more thought out voice leading? Which I know can be difficult with a guitar. I can't put my finger on it cause it's been a while since I had to take ear training and ACTUALLY define those sounds that I hear. But I digress, and to summarize this paragraph, you are NOT singing out of tune, in fact I thoroughly enjoy your voice, you just MAY have some weird voice leading issues that make your voice and/or guitar jump from weird intervals which makes you sound out of tune. But I honestly loved those weird notes. And the notes you chose to include in the melody of your vocals.

As A drummer, I also LOVED your drum track; however you made it, well done. It includes great fills that I AS A DRUMMER, want to learn, which only happens to me with my favorite prog rock/djent bands. YET you dont get too crazy with them early on, you let everything progress, and fit in with the bass guitar as well.

Just over all, WELL DONE, great mixing, GREAT composition, great talent.

Congratz on making the final round fellow competitor! Break a leg....er....speaker!

== I wasn’t your judge for the NGAUC, but here’s some criticism anyways. ==

Wow! I’ve always appreciated your music, but it’s generally not been the sort of music that I would seek out. (With a few exceptions like Mote Prime, because I love post-rock). To be clear, it’s not bad music - it’s generally pretty friggin' amazing - but I have to admit, I don’t tend to listen to jazz fusion all too much. It’s just personal taste.

(Though you are doing a pretty darn good job of convincing me to get into jazz fusion, but let’s not get into that...)

Which makes it all the more interesting that I actually REALLY like this song and I would TOTALLY burn it on a mix-tape. (Assuming anyone actually made those anymore.) The first time I listened to it, the chorus really caught me, and I looped it a few times immediately - not even judging it, just enjoying it - which is pretty darn rare.

If anything, I think that the song is a bit short! The chorus is so good that I think it definitely could have been repeated one more time at the end, perhaps with a little more melodic variation like you started to do on the final chorus.

I do have a couple of dumb nit-picks. Someone already mentioned that there are a couple of places where you sing off pitch. This is definitely something to watch out for, though I don’t think I can remember that happening in your past songs. A slightly larger thing that bothered me is the way that your lyrics felt like they would stumble in on the first beat of the measure. “You’re fine”, “You’re mine” etc seemed like they were trying to fit into a single syllable. It bothered me a lot in my first few listens, but less now, so I’m not sure if I got used to it, or if it’s not bad. (On the other hand, I really like how the last word of the previous phrase is the first word of the new measure! It’s such a cool idea, and you make it work great with the melody.) The ending is a little abrupt - I think you could have held the word “closer” for a beat or two more.

I wanted to hear a more epic guitar solo, but that’s only because you spoiled me with like 6 of them in your last song :P

My last criticism is that the handling of the drums seems a *little* off sometimes, particularly when I mentally compare with professional tracks, but I’m having difficulty putting my finger on exactly why. (You know you’re doing pretty good when I’m pulling out professional tracks to compare against.) It’s not the tone of the drums that bothers me, though. One thing I’ve noticed is that you REALLY like to put a flanger on the drums. I’m not sure if it’s bad so much as I just hear you do it a lot ;-) Maybe what bothered me is the use of cymbals towards the end? I think you are using them a little too much - I expect to hear the constant cymbals for really energetic songs, but this one is fairly laid back. It may also just be the 5/4 - without any sort of subdivision the drums kinda make the song feel like it’s lurching forward unevenly.

So if you want to improve, I’d say to head in the direction of drums, but I don’t know exactly what it is. You’re a smart musician, you figure it out! ;-)

This is my favorite of the NGAUC tracks I listened to this round (through I only listened to about half of them.)

Overall Score: 10/10

Mini-Scores:

* Composition: 4+/4
* Arrangement: 4/4
* Mixing: 4/4