My bands newest song, Martyr

[Dirty Earl]

I need some real, possibly brutal feedback. I can't get real feedback from those around me, so I was hoping I could get some here. I cant quite put my finger on whats missing.

The drums are temporary, they will be replaced by live drums when my drummer gets back in town.

Any help is much appreciated.

The band name is not what is posted this is just a soundcloud I set up to listen to test mixes between band members.

Martyr by Bad Hombre | Free Listening on SoundCloud

[_BOX_]

Well there's no getting away from one fact, it's way way too repetitive it's essentially the same song for 4 minutes with one slight key change at times.
Now it's more of a personal thing for me, some people enjoy that, but I think it need to evolve more around the minute and a half mark.
The actual effect going on, I'm not sure what it is but I would tone down the background flanger effect a tiny bit and maybe lower the volume of that lead synth too.

You've got some sick vocals to be honest man, reminds me of U2 a bit, and they aren't badly recorded either, though they seems to come in a little to early or late at times relative to the beat of the track.
When you start combining the falsetto with the main vocal I think that needs to be separated a bit, maybe pull the falsetto off to the side a little and reverb it a bit more.
Also bring the volume on it down a 3-4 decibels
Another thing, I think you need to change the delay you have on the vocal, it doesn't seem properly synced with the track, if it is it still needs to be changed in my personal opinion.
I'd like to see it come in a bit earlier but that's more a personal preference.

You have this classified as rock but it seems more like a dance/electronic track, though the vocals feel like rock, so in that sense it's a little disjointed but that's not always a bad thing, I like messing around
with expectations like that.

It's solid man, and this format might work live but personally I'd reccomened that if you cannot figure out a way to make the song evolve melodically, simply shorten it, make it a 3 minute track, maybe slightly less.
Sometimes less it more, people always forget this, leave the listener wanting to hit repeat, not wanting to finish half way through cause they feel like they've heard it all.

Keep up the good work!

[V3SS3L]

I think that this song has a great vibe. It is well written. The singer is excellent. The use of space in the mix is nice! Keep at it!

[NOR_OMA_NS]

So I have a few gripes with the song. While the production is solid, the singer is slightly off key and when combined with the flanger effect, is exaggerated greatly. The song itself is also quite repetitive. The vocals themselves also feel kind of weak in some spots. I don't know if thats just the style but they feel half assed.

[_BOX_]

I honestly don't think it helps to be so vague, for instance, what spots do you think the vocals sound weak and in what way? How can he fix anything if you tell him they "just feel half assed"
You can absolutely be harsh, and your initial criticism was actually really insightful, but I don't think that kind of thing at the end helps anyone.
This isn't for me to say but I couldn't help but chime in

[Dirty Earl]

Thanks for the feedback. A few of the suggestions confirmed issues that me and the vocalist had (the delays and the flanger) We are aware of the repetitiveness of it. The synth part was a sample I was writing for another project, it wasn't meant to be the basis of a whole song. I showed it to the Vocalist and he immediately vibed on it and wrote the song in 10 minutes mostly freestyling. After that we spent 2 hours recording better takes than the freestyle take.

Another bit of feed back was the falsettos "oohs". They are hard panned with the reverb hard panned to the opposite side.

[JoeMatt]

Hey, I'm new here, so just getting my feet wet as far as giving feedback.

Honestly, you kind of lost me at the intro. You've got this pretty expected chord progression, which is OK, but it needs some kind of melody over it and not just one where you're playing along with the main chords. Some kind of varied or more melodic bass line would really help too as opposed to just always peddling along with the chords. I think the delay would be better in much smaller doses -- used more to emphasize a certain lyric here and there for example. Just personal preference, but "out of the blue and into the black" is such a memorable line from a very well known song -- I don't know about using it, it kind of took me out of the song. I think the rest has been covered. Anyway, it's pretty solid and catchy and certainly worth refining.

Cheers.

[WALOOP]

It's close - like mentioned above it's a bit repetitive -

Maybe speed up the bassline in parts? Add some crunch or distortion to it to make it stand out a bit

A nice arpeggio in the middle, a lil widdly widdly ya know?

It's not that it isn't good or very well done - just too familiar in ways!

[AlekSalt]

Agree! Also there is no a development in the instrumentation...
I couldn't even find where the chorus starts: everything is the same.
Still I like the singer's style (but sometimes he isn't in tune),
is that G# the highest note of his range? Could he take a C (2 steps higher)?