DonaldFletcher's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[In the news]

There's no excuse for this getting any score < 4

Exceptionally polished sound on the first listen, especially compared to most of the other material I hear in this place.
Main problem I'm getting is that it seems like your percussion lacks slightly in creativity and inventiveness behind the rest of the song's character, especially from the 2 minute mark on. But your instruments are very well managed and arranged. Sometimes it's a little bit flat, though, like an unprocessed oldschool midi keyboard. If that's the sound you're going for, great. If not, think about tossing in a little more reverb just to bring it into the listener's reality a bit, with a decent equalizer to keep things from getting out of hand if necessary.
I don't normally find songs that use spoken vocal samples that I actually like, but you did a killer job immersing them into this piece to really drive home your theme. The singing vocals were spot on for this kind of tune.
Overall a very fluid and enjoyable track that I'm sure I"m gonna remember. Cheers.

GlueR responds:

Thanks for the review! I just got 0 bombed in my latest submission, which frustrates me even more! I was never all that good with writing drums mainly due to boredom, so in most cases I give it to the band's drummer to play them on a midi drumset and send me the file. When I did this, he didn't have midi drumset... So you 've got a point there. As for the old-skool thing, I was actually going for it. It's a hammond, but I made it clean and crisp, so that it resembles a video game sound, to create a greater contradiction between a happy tune and the actual message. Later I was told that the idea was something like REM's "It's the end of the world". A happy melody on a sad subject.

[Dragon On Salvia]

Well...

Never had a bad trip on salvia.
I had to do acid and mescaline for that!
Anyway, cool track. I might partially agree with the previous reviewer on genre choice, but if you're writing a track specifically to fit into a certain genre then you're limiting yourself creatively. So I'm glad this was here, otherwise I might not have heard it!

[Industrial Techno shit.]

Another good one

Sorry, I'm dead tired but I saw this on the later submissions in Industrial and wanted to give you a review before I forgot.
I dig your beat as always, and your composition is pretty solid. I'm just detecting here that you didn't put as much into this as you did with your other material that I've heard. The synthetic bass instrument in particular was notably, if not distractingly repetitive. But I really liked those distant synth chords, the ones that had their 'solo' if I can call it that around 2:38. They really helped make this track as great as it is.

So I'm giving you an 8 here just cause of a few small shortcomings, but I'm voting 5 especially because there's no reason in the world why this should score under 4.

DomesticTerrorist responds:

Thanks dude :D

[Embrace me]

Another great one dude

Yeah, this is really working for me. You've got that industrial style that you're great at here, plus you've got this almost ambient thing going on here at the base of it all, making for a truly unique piece of music here. It's really such a slick idea that the somewhat repetitive nature of the whole thing really didn't bother me.

Plus I like the fact that you let this one end itself a lot more smoothly. That really completes the piece.

Overall quite well done, and again, what a cool concept.

Teddybeere responds:

Thank you for listening regularly to my new works. I don't think that the combination of distorted beats and calm pads is really this unique, Johan van Roy for example was very successful with this experiment far before me ;)
This track was a bit different from the others in its birth... first, it used to be hardcore powernoise consisting of nothing but distorted drums. But something wasn't right about that... so I'm glad I found its true soul in the version that you can hear now and I'm even more glad that you like it ;]
By the way, is there anything new to be expected from your side?

[==(Cloudclimber)==]

Damn, I'm glad I checked the front page today

First off, I've got to say your imagery is phenomenal.
And the way you translate that to sound is nothing short of spectacular. Seriously, you inspire me.

It's difficult for me to talk about your music, it's like staring into the sun with your naked eyes and trying to describe what you see without blinking. That's the best way I know how to review this - and the only thing I can say right now that has any solidity to it is that this track is incredible. As always, a true work of art.

[Nadir]

You never let me down man. Glad I found this!

Another fantastic track on par with Dark Conviction, if not a step or two above in some regards. You have a way of really bringing the listener into a whole other world, and I can tell that you're like me in that you don't publish a track until you're sure it's as polished as you're gonna get it. On top of that, you took this to another level by finding way to make a melody new every time the listener hears it. I added this track to my favorites right away because I'm sure that every time I hear it I'm going to find something new to appreciate. There's so much depth in your music that it blows me away.

By the way, sorry for the disorganized review - I took way too much caffeine and my hands are shaking. But I'll tell you what, this track deserves straight 5's like everything else I've ever heard from you. It's always great to hear your material - I've been waiting almost a month for this!

cycerin responds:

Thanks, man! Good to hear from you again.

[Ich brenne]

Another solid track

Don't worry, this is way too hard for techno. Ha ha, was that a joke?
I love how you process your bass drums. It's definitely the percussion that makes this piece. Really overloads the ears with this huge volume of sound.
Other than that, I think there was a lot more you could have done with this- just seems like you didn't give this great track the ending it really deserved in the last 20 seconds. I think that if you'd just carried it out for another fifteen or so seconds, and bring it to some climax then let it naturally fade, it would have made it a lot more fulfilling.
I definitely dig your hard, dark style though. Really brings me into the track. Nice work once again!

Teddybeere responds:

Hmkay, thank you, maybe I'll overwork the ending... you're right when you say it does not really fit to the song. I don't know if I'll upload the final version here but I'll pm you when the album is ready where you can find it.

[Blinder [PDM]]

Definitely.

I hope this stays right up top where it belongs. Most certainly one of the most original pieces of work up here at the moment, and I think that's a recurring theme with everything you do- very innovative.

It was hard for me to find a single word to describe the overall mood for this piece. Not that I'm seeing gnomes or anything (inside joke of course) but it seems like you're artfully flirting with the boundary between establishment and a limitless array of synths, which is what you're good at and, when you're famous, will be known for I'm sure! On one octave I'm getting a driving hail of sound, and on top of that it's your beautiful mastery of synthetic noises that really makes this a pleasing listen, with the mandatory flanger (which I know all too well your love for, lol) keeping things soft enough and providing enough variety in the sound to make it just as interesting each time it rolls around.

Were you thinking about adding vocals to this? It sounds to me like you left room open for that. If so I look forward to hearing it.

Elfire responds:

i <3 reading your reviews! ^^ they make me sound better than i am! haha. jurys still out on vocals. i may start getting someone to do vocals instead, if i can find the right voice.

again thanks for the review!

[Ebmtechno- Beta]

Held my attention for FIVE FULL MINUTES

Maybe you know how important that is, because 90 percent of the stuff over 3 minutes is usually just the same song x3.

On top of that, this thing is just phenomenal. Only thing I'm noticing- you might want to bring down the hi-hats that arrive before 1 minute, or smooth them out somehow... that was the only part that slightly distracted me.

One thing you did was morphing that melody from Ebmtrance-loop that I heard the other day (Ex: around 0:55) and then bringing it back to the higher energy original. Great idea, and believe me I know that's hard to do right. Nice.

Everything here was very well timed and well orchestrated. I can't say I'm as much of the techno connoisseur as I am for Industrial, but I honestly think this is fantastic.

DomesticTerrorist responds:

Yep, this is the continuation of that song... thanks for the great review!

[Ebmtrance-loop]

You know...

Normally I don't give such high scores to tracks that are this much "bubbly techno" compared to industrial, but this is actually working for me. It makes a fantastic loop and I don't mind having it on repeat right now while I type this- I hope someone gets ahold of this and makes a killer flash with it.

Anyway, what I really like about this is how you managed to put the more cheery techno melody pretty smoothly over the strong darker industrial background. Really adds a lot of depth and feeling to the piece. Very fine job.

When you make this into a song, just make sure you don't simply repeat a loop 2 or three times like a lot of the full-length songs on here seem to do. I'll be honest though, you set my expectations really high and I'm thinking you have the potential to create something that's just truly epic here.

DomesticTerrorist responds:

Thanks for the awesome review, I actually posted the full version late yesterday if you'd like to check it out!