It's a big relief that it's enough to pick the 5 top ones. But as it's not any problem for me to comment each submission - for I already analyzed them all anyway - I add my comments for everyone here.
Arelem, Addicted
I surely can hear the influence of Lil Peep. Good choice for your style. Song works very nicely. The groove feels just perfect all through the song. It’s good to hear that you have more confidence on you voice. I would trust it even more and put it out without audible effects. Nice change around 0.50. When the main theme comes back 1.15 there could be some new elements added. Maybe something new on the low end. Lyrics work very well. All through the song, it feels to have meaning. But maybe you repeat the some lines too much. I would try a bit slower tempo just to give you more time to focus on every word. At 2:20 starts the final straight, and there you should have something new to rise it to the final level.
Crosshatched, The Sky Opens Up
It’s a bit difficult to comment this as this only a short part of the whole song. When listening a song one of the most important things is to hear how things evolve from earlier parts and create changes and tensions to earlier moments. Now we don’t know that. I listened again to your earlier submission from SWC059. There you showed your skills: you surely can create convincing moods and melody lines. So you have a rhythmic and melodic skill and musical vision to paint images with music. But what happened with this one? Now you have big rhythmic problems, and it’s difficult to discern what the intended melody line is. So, it's very difficult to give any real songwriting comments this time. Sorry for that.
DavidJohn, Surely Designed
Song is coherent all through from the start to the end. Very well done. You have a great potential in your voice. Maybe some small mixing tricks could give it a final focus and touch. Now the lyrics don’t get the full attention. The voice could be eq-ed to be just a bit smoother but 3 dBs louder. Or it could be side-chaining the piano compressor with voice that could make a difference. Nice natural and smooth transition to 3/4 tempo. But at the end of the song I start to feel that song is lacking a stronger musical hook.
EsteveCorbera, Una canço com qualsevol
I like the rhythm that you have created around that melody track. But when it comes to chord lines, It’s a difficult to evaluate this because — i feel — there’s constant ”out of tune” feeling. Probably caused by boomy kick that is probably tuned to a note that doesn’t sit well with some of the chords used in this song. After the good introduction of the song there is not happening too much in this arrangement. Maybe you could add some new details as the song evolves. For example, a real shaker and some synth fills. Now it seems to be looping the same initial ideas without new nuances.
GamaGama, I Want To Be A Leaf
Very interesting experiment with a virtual singer. (Actually it would be nice theme for some month to create a song with demo-version of this Vocaloid, and also lyrics could be the same for every one and created with some AI lyrics generator.) Back to your song. This month you have a very nice and delicate melody line with nice chord progression. It sounds as if it’s a pop hit from 60’s. But this month your arrangement is not on the same level as in your previous submissions. For the soft parts — where the melody lines are at it’s best — you have for too long just a single strummed chords. You could listen, for example, "The End of the World” by Skeeter Davis to get some possible ideas how it could roll in those parts. In stronger parts the arrangement work much better. There you could take some inspiration from the ”Something” by The Beatles. At least there’s about the some chord progression ideas and tempo is quite the same so you could find something from ”Something”.
KukoBass, Waiting for the fall
The opening guitar riff is real and great. Something, where you have shown to be very good at. It creates a huge expectation for the song. But then comes in that synth and it feels a total opposite of that organic guitar riff. Maybe it’s too much on the grid and without natural velocity movement or maybe the sound is too wide and unfocused. It feels lifeless after that cool guitar+bass interaction. But the melody as such played by that synth is probably very good, but it’s hard to tell, somehow the synth don’t give a chance for it to bloom. Well, the melody line is quite long without any breathing moments. It might be very difficult to sing, if there were words for this.
patrlord, Hey You
This one clearly has the strongest and most ”hookful” chorus of this month. You surely have a talent to create a hit stuff. But compared to that chorus, I think the song starts a bit uninterestingly. It doesn’t create a promise of the forthcoming excellency, and it probably happens that some listeners will make a huge mistake by skipping the song without hearing that unexpected change introduced by chorus. Singer is very good. But as I was expecting to hear the anarchic energy of your singin style, it came to my mind: How about doing a duetto with some inspiration from "Lady and the Tramp".
RyanC, Evergreen
Guitar riff is cool, but it repeats too much. I’m sure you could easily find some variations to it. Or maybe other instruments could join the riff later somehow. You have a good and energetic voice. It’s pleasure to listen to it. Song is very good but for some reason I feel that the arrangement doesn’t move enough. I like the change at 2:11. As the arrangement is quite sparse (I prefer that!), there's a room for many small details. For example maybe drums could use some ghost notes to add some nuances to the groove.
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