Score: 8

"Your right hand."

submission: A Marvelous Suitcase

date: September 12, 2009

I'm focusing on your right hand. I notice you've got your double kicks down, fucking awesome, but I notice a serious lack of stuff like latin and african style claves and straight up gear changes. You're doing things on the kicks you should be doing with your hands, which isn't quite meshing with the guitars.

Again, heavy reliance on effects on everything, not to say you're not tonally correct, just that when you're using a clean tone on the guitars, you can't just pound in with the double kicks like you do on the hard songs. There's lots of places where you're shuffling the kicks where you should be shuffling your pinger or your ride cymbal.

my first thought when hearing the guitars is "separated teradiddle (21221211) with slow dynamic cymbal build" but instead you're all trying to hardcore this one out. Also, the sampled "clap snap rap" effect completely throws me off.

You keep doing corps style snare in places where an airy big cymbal holding pattern should be.

Again, great song, very clear and all that, but there's more to music that sound clarity. In the opener, you go for highhat when ride would match the reverb on the guitar more.

I know I sound like I'm nitpicking, but what good is a review without constructive criticism?

Basically, in short, you need to work on your strike form on your right hand. That's why your kicks are so much faster than your hands; I have a feeling if I watched you play your arms are doing all the work instead of your fingers.

Score: 9

"How do you do this live?"

submission: Dortmunder

date: September 12, 2009

I mean, this is really good... but can you do this live? With the effects and all?

It's very good, but.... everything sounds TOO crisp, like you either used triggers or electric drums.

For instance, I don't hear any dynamics in your strikes. Every strike is the exact same volume and timber as the last.

I mean, yeah, if you just want to make good music to submit to NG, fucking kudos, it's a good song... but playing shows? how will you make that happen?

Score: 6

"Harshness a signature?"

submission: TF - Farewell NG BBS 

date: April 24, 2009

So far I've heard two of your tracks... both overly harsh on the ear.

There's so much more to the palette than just crispness... like how redstripe beer goes with fish, but Negra Modelo goes with beef. There's got to be a balance, otherwise the track. My fast dirty suggestion is paying more attention to the EQ and adding mids and lows to the harsh tracks.

Score: 6

"Too subtle and dry"

submission: TF - Genetic 

date: April 24, 2009

The mix is WAY too harsh on the ear, like it was over mastered. The riffs are all too low in the mix, so even though there's bad ass shit going on, it's dulled by the stock parts of the beat. I suggest a little more fuzz and some verb to smooth things out, and bringing the volume of the stutter beats up in the mix.

Basically, you need more warmth to balance out all the harshness in the loop. Everything's too sharp sounding; it's very abrasive to the ear.

Score: 10

"I knew you preferred it gay..."

submission: B.O.B - Furry Farm

date: March 28, 2009

I love it how you included all the little fuckups to make every sound honest... nice.

Score: 8

"A little too soft on the ears...."

submission: Nav - Space Sequence (Remix)

date: February 6, 2009

Don't get me wrong, very good song, but you don't seem to be ...pushing... things hard enough. The core is VERY strong, but I get the feeling some really kind of out there ...

AHA!!! I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

ok, there's this bridge, between speed and white noise... take any rhythm, play it fast enough, and you get staticy sounding white noise, right? Well tonaly, you're using PLENTY of white noise, but you AREN'T bridging that gap, so in my head, there's this empty space... like things are too soft. BUT IT'S THE UBER FAST QUICK LICK RIFFS I'M MISSING!

Like, the point of slow beats is to have more space for flashy quick ornamentation, right? Having a really warm, tube-tone is supposed to soften up all the dynamic of crazy ass break core snare shit.

I mean, VERY good, but I noticed this....

Score: 10

"Never talk shit..."

submission: B.O.B feat.Wade - Bleeding Oak

date: January 25, 2009

... about my low quality submissions EVER AGAIN.

You will NEVER live this down. EVAR.

These guys CLEARLY weren't on enough black tar opium to be "grunge"

But seriously, the guitar playing was just sloppy. Not grunge sloppy... that's compositional, but just "I clearly have no plan on what I'm going to play" sloppy.

I know, because I've recorded HUGE PILES of sloppy music before and... yeah. You can actually HEAR the little delays in the rhythm stream where the guitarist is trying to figure out what the fuck to play.

And is it REALLY grunge without live drums? Don't answer that one; it's rhetorical, ie, NO. NO NO NO.

Silly techno guys! Leave the live recordings to us pros!

That being said.. .10'd 5'd, because my heart is full of hatred... at all times... for all things....

Score: 6

"Everything but the speed grind...."

submission: Evil Doings!

date: January 12, 2008

you did a good job of breaking up rhythms here, but where's the speed grind? Whats the point of playing slow if you can't pop out the16th and 32nd notes? You've got tone issues going on; it sounds like you bastardized a good live recording by letting some gay post production program get it's filthy hands on it.

Score: 8

"Slightly repetitive...."

submission: Kiddi's Medley

date: January 12, 2008

And there weren't a whole lot of good breakdowns, either. I mean, it's cool you can transpose, and the finger roll technique you're using is nice, but all it takes is a little rhythmic variation to make this song have a lot more grasp to it. Then again, that probably only makes so much sense to me because I'm a drummer as opposed to a guitar player.

Score: 10

"awesome mix of techno and metal"

submission: Verta ja lihaa

date: November 10, 2007

Very Rammstein, in all the good ways. The only think I could possibly think of wrong with this track is my prejudice against all techno and programmed music. Good enough to be played in any club I'd hang out in. Congratulations.