Leavesz's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tunetober24 #23]

These melodies are so pretty they in fact melted my brain.

The tone of the composition here to me is sorta reminiscent of Heal from the Ico soundtrack; it feels like an intense glimmer of hope and it is a significant touch to the heart the whole way through. It is pleasing to listen to and the soundscape it paints is permeated in a sort of invigorating happiness that I find hard to explain.

One nitpick I guess I have is that it could use some more dynamic variation to ease in & out of some sections, although it doesn't affect the experience that much as it is quite a short track. One could say that the main motif is a bit pervasively static throughout the entire thing but I personally don't mind it so much as the instrumentation surrounding it does provide enough variation to keep the track from feeling entirely stagnant at any moment.

If this were to be extended I could easily imagine a second half where the mood of the composition is turned on its head while the track disintegrates into a reverb wall towards the end. It is totally fine as it is now & and I feel that any minor alteration could easily destroy the delicate emotion it portrays so actually please forget I wrote this paragraph.

Also, is that Gross Beat on the breaks in the second half? I think I recognize those sequences, usually that would be somewhat of a turn off but here it doesn't sound lazily executed so it doesn't bother me as much as it would otherwise.

All in all, this is lovely and beautiful and definitely going into the dedicated NG folder in my local music library. <3

larrynachos responds:

Gross beat is my daddy. I want to make my own library of patterns but since I've been doing these daily, it's all about being economical with my time.

These have all been very much one idea stretched into 2-3 minutes. Yeah it would be nice to have multiple unique sections in each track, but some days I don't have more than an hour to work on it.

Thanks for the listen and review! Glad you liked it

[inadequate]

I like the mix on this it feels real warm on my headphones, crisp production & instrumentation also help in achieving that sensation. The glitch-like volume cuts in the intro almost made me think my wi-fi disconnected for a sec, what I think is a cool effect although it is always slightly confusing on a first listen, but still cool.

It's just a personal nitpick and the kind of thing that easily makes or breaks a track depending on how it's executed, but I do find it to be a little too harmonically invariant for the most of the first half of the thing. Again, it's just a personal nitpick that probably doesn't matter much if at all in a more objective manner. The more drastic switch up in the latter half of the track certainly makes up for that, though.

This is a cool song all around but I personally would pick that extremely crunched vocal section at around 02:44 as my favourite bit of it, as it builds up abrasiveness in an efficient way that doesn't overpower what follows nor reduces its impact. And by the way that last section is also a really nice coda for the whole composition.

It was a nice listen overall, might listen to the full album later if I don't forget. P.S: Oh and I forgot to mention I think the lyricism is cool and adequately catchy here.

[Devast/File]

all my 5 are belong to this.

Nice breakbeat slicing, love the bassline at the end too. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to break shit up. Lovely.

[LOVE]

mmm yes, 2 step breakcore.

[Tunetober24 #07]

A bit slower than what I usually listen to but still, this one's a vibe. Love the glitching.

[Breakcore No. 5]

oh yea, this is nice. I appreciate the gabber kicks.

Personally I find the constant max loudness level throughout the track to be a bit offputting as it muffles the impact of the gabber kick and softens the dynamic contrast between sections. Usually in tracks of this genre the drums are always the loudest elements while any other instrumentation is kept more in the background as a sort of decorative flourish, so hearing the sparkly synth at 01:51 overpowering the drums out of nowhere feels a bit awkward.

I also feel like there's a lot of room for some eerie psychedelic sfx splashes or rave stab dub delay noise during the breakcore sections, it gets a bit monotonous hearing just the dry break slicing in isolation for a minute.

Other than that this is a nice track.

8-BITek responds:

My friend taught me how to make breakcore using just drums and gabber kicks. Before, my breakcore tracks were different. thanks

[Tunetober24 #05]

I'd totally see a 3dGIFdubstep video with this song, something about the constant flow of the drum beat and the clear call and response phrasing of the drops makes me think of that stuff.

Not much else to say as it is quite short, I liked the beatboxing buildup in the middle of the track. Production quality is nice even considering that this took an hour to make. The main synth shots in the drop are a bit reminiscent of rave stabs, kinda expected this track to go more in that direction of oldschool hardcore because of it, what could've turned this into some kind of weird future colour rave track in the second half. Still, nice tune.

[It's time to let go]

Being pedantic about it this would require more gabber noise industrial garbage distortion sounds regardless of BPM to be considered breakcore, and Drill 'n' Bass would be the more fitting descriptor for this sort of pretty IDM take on spastic breakbeat music, although few people seem to be aware of that term outside Squarepusher's work.

The drums playing throughout the entire track at a constant pace does get a bit tiresome even on a first listen, so I think a bit of dynamic variation in that aspect couldn't hurt. Being able to hear the instrumentation below the breaks in isolation at some point would've been appreciated, as I find its jazzy composition to be quite enjoyable.

Not sure if this amount of compositional content justifies the length of the track, but the production & mix quality is rather clean so it isn't a totally ear grating listen at least. In a way I guess I am actually glad this isn't just another Icosikaipent, not that it would've been bad but it would've been more of a task to listen to, lol.

Anyway, nice stuff.

8-BITek responds:

Yeah, it's probably closest to drill'n'bass. My top idols are Squarepusher, Photek, Aphex Twin, The Flashbulb, and Kettel, but my number one idol is Squarepusher. If you have time, you can check out this track of mine, which is more in the breakcore style: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1339711

[NOCTACRY - Angel of Animosity]

For breakcore I feel like the breaks could be turned up a bit, I can just barely hear them below everything else at 01:00. I also think the vocal samples could've been much less prominent and it wouldn't've affected the track negatively in any way, it just sticks out a little too much over the instrumental, and as they're the kind of samples I've heard more than twice already it comes off a little corny sounding to me.

The mix in general is a bit rough here and there but other than that I think it's a fine track, although a bit rhythmically simplistic throughout. I would say I liked the bit at the end the most, the compositional switch up there serves as a nice coda to resolve the track with, and more particularly speaking I also liked the pitch bending on the synths in that last section, it is always cool to hear in these kinds of tracks.

NOCTACRYofficial responds:

This isn't breakcore, it's 200step. That being in the tags was unintentional since I just copy pasted them from a tag list I made for myself