ForgottenDawn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[NeverEndingStress(NGAIC layer 3)]

This is what I would probably put in a "frag music" playlist while blowing heads off in any 90's/early 00's first person shooter. It just has that kind of balls-to-the-wall "I do what I want" vibe for me. Really tasteful offset on the percussion there, too, I love tiny details like these. Nice job. 👍

[Blaze Of Beheaded Fungi]

The Cure - A Forest / Joy Division - Disorder flashbacks all over while listening. I love the driving pace of this. I think you've nailed the genre; it's such a fun piece to listen to. Production is also spot on, as it sounds convincingly 80's enough to me, down to the gated verb on the snare drum and overall thin and slightly trebly mix. The track just flew by as I was writing this, so I'm just gonna say that you did a really nice job putting all of these different elements together.

xZiriusX responds:

I haven't heard those songs in a long while actually, but I surely had my era when it was all i listened to hehe.

[Blemish]

Yes!! More chill music. You love to hear it. I dig the raggae-like groove. It makes for some subtle head-bopping. Songs don't need to be overly complex and layered in order to work and this is a perfect example of how well simplicity does its job without sounding intrusive. It just flows. You put it on loop for as long as you need to, and that's about it. Certified solid 👍

[NGAIC 2023, Layer 3 - F I F T H S H I P H O M E]

I love how the music fits the artwork so well. It has a dreamy, chill vibe and it fluidly moves from one place to the next without sounding stiff or boring. I must have left looping it in the background three or four times while writing this. This definitely provides a nice break from all the soul-crushing metal I've heard so far, haha. Elevator music for the soul and elevating music for dreamers. Bonus points for fulfilling the 13/4 time signature challenge. Thanks for sharing!

[Cyclopean Omen (NGAIC Draft)]

Oh, this is so interesting. It sounds so industrial to me. Even the production wouldn't sound out of place as an early-to-mid-90's underground metal hit. I just *had* to be the first one to review this, since I'm a sucker for anything doom metal-related. This is, like... a fusion of all the extreme subgenres. You get the industrial side right from the synthetic drums and overall production style, death growls and tremolo picking, the abrasive, cold atmosphere of black metal, and the slow, existential pace of doom metal.

I'd really love to hear a fully fleshed out album in this style and see how far you can push the concept. There's some really solid potential here, and you're definitely no stranger to either black metal or industrial, as it shows here. MOAR!!!

LD-W responds:

Ayyy thanks!

The other project (the big one) is meant more to be the more 'Avant-Garde' Industrial Black Metal project which I'm slowly concepting in the background, while this one's more supposed to be mainly Black/Doom haha. Production-wise, that would be a case of my 'mix it to clinical levels, then dirty it up afterwards' philosophy bleeding though (someone else did compare the production-side to Blut Aus Nord's approach). More work, but significant flexibility! I did think about running the entire thing through a tape machine instead to dirty everything up at once and give it some subtle warping, but I thought against it in the end, although I may experiment with that on a future piece under this potential side-project (potentially interested in expanding this out into a one-off album under a dedicated name)

[House Of Immolation NGAIC Layer 3]

When I first heard this track, I thought "This is going to be one of the first songs I should review". Now, I'm biased. I have a soft spot for anything doom metal-related, let alone anything that sounds 90's enough to me. This one does just that. It's the kind of death/doom that leans more towards the brutal, death metal side (Disembowelment, Asphyx, Disma, Winter) than the melancholic, gothic strain of 90's death/doom.

And I love that. It doesn't get boring. It even has a solo! This wouldn't be out of place as part of a lost demo tape that was just unearthed by some goblin craving for obscure metal gems. Bonus points for fulfilling the 13/4 challenge. Rad stuff. 👍

Banana-head responds:

Thanks for the review!

[Why does it sound like 3 different songs (NGAIC layer 2)]

This is pretty cool! I love that we all interpreted Drum and Bass in wildly different ways. I'd like to think that you saved the best for last because it dropped all pretenses of being a DnB song and instead went fuck it, gloves off, let's just turn everything up to 11. Then it ended as soon as I was getting really into it haha. But yeah, love the intensity and variety in the riffs and progression. Sometimes the best things really are made in only a handful of hours. Nice work~

Arponax responds:

I like to just make random stuff in few hours and call it done :D

and yeah, the last parts need to stand out and be more interesting than the first parts XDD thats one of the reasons i dont like to copy and paste drops.

[YendorNG - I Like That (NGAIC Level 2-2023 Entry)]

Hooray to more Drum and Bass! Not too shabby of a first attempt! I've definitely heard worse. I think you've had the right intuition when it comes to bringing the melodic ear candy forward compared to other DnB styles, and you've also contextualized the vocal samples, which weren't made for this track specifically, fairly decently.

I would have perhaps liked to hear a bit more sauce to it, like perhaps synth lines and pads that open up as the track progresses, giving you a sense of emotional intensity and resolution. As it currently stands, it sounds a bit incomplete. The drum break is there, the bassline is there, you clearly have a structure—you just need to add more to it.

Again, as a first attempt, I still found this enjoyable and there are plenty of elements (mastering / production / sample work) that suggests you're moving in the right direction, should you continue to pursue this line of work. 👍

[malfunction]

This is pretty enjoyable, actually!

For the peaking issue, there are a number of ways to prevent digital distortion.
- The quick and dirty way is to chain a compressor or a limiter to the tracks you want to keep in check and set it to -0.1dB threshold. It's *just* enough to avoid clipping.
- The long and more satisfying route, IMHO, is to do some mixing work first, and then, after making sure the master track doesn't peak, compress/boost. I don't recommend normalizing your track soon after exporting it if it's already peaking, because that distortion carries to any volume level. Bass and drums tend to be the loudest elements in most mixes, so make sure to level-adjust and EQ them accordingly.

Hope this is helpful, and I think the track itself is pretty nice! It's melodic, laid-back, and quirky. Keep it up. 💪

xetto responds:

thanks a lot! :)

[What Am I? (NGAIC Layer 2)]

'Tis the Drum and Bass season~ Despite the fairly sizeable number of D&B entries this time around, you love to see the variety! Everyone just sounds so different. This is a hard-hitting track through and through. I imagine it would be perfect for a chase sequence. Really good stuff overall, spot on production and synth work.