Holy triumphant 80s movie-montage soundtrack, Batman. One of the examples given in the polyrhythm video I watched when doing my homework was 'Chariots of Fire' and the verses in this song have that cool subtly anthemic-yet-wistful feel. The momentum builds nicely into the excellently super-anthemic chorus with those great backing vocals (that remind me of Tarzan Boy!). Some really cool low-key guitar work in this as well as the synths and I like your voice a lot in this higher register. When you put more grit into your voice for the key change this reminded me of Glow Worm! The fuzzy guitar feels a little washed out which makes the mix a little muddy at times and the vocal panning sounds a little odd (the lead vocal is slightly to the left? I didn't actually notice this until the other judges mentioned it but it does feel like an unusual choice). But yeah, I fell asleep with this stuck in my head last night, I woke up with it stuck in my head this morning.

The strength of this song is its creativity, in that you've woven a lot of different elements together to make a really fun synthpop epic, in a way that Carouselambra sort of wished it was but completely isn't. Good job doing the rhythms in a way that feels danceable rather than in a dance of the uncanny valley. Your singing has improved quite a lot over the course of this Nur Ein, and I hope that you'll continue working on it. One thing I've noticed that you occasionally get overexcited, like at the key change. YMMV, but the delivery of this line calls too much attention to itself for me, rather than being something that just happens and is cool. As I wrote in the judges chat, it made me flashback to when I was 9 and in glee club at the big school event (I cannot remember what the event was, but some kind of school concert) and we sang a song. Earlier I thought it was "Puttin' on the Ritz" but now I think it might have been "The Rainbow Connection." Anyway I was 9 and very small, so they put me in front, where at the end of the song, they did a big key change, and I was a little overexcited for it, and jumped as I belted out the key change, and I still remember the looks of the adults in the front row. Maybe they were laughing because they thought it was cute, but I was scarred for life. Anyway, my point, yes passion, but passion with control would work better for me here than the less fettered variety in this delivery. It contributes to the spotty mix, which is strangely empty sounding to me in the mids, mostly I think because of the hard panned vocals where the R disappeared. I thought the bass lacked some definition as well. There's so many ideas packed in here, elongating "homestretch", etc. that the density starts working against it at a certain point for me because it starts getting muddy in the mix. But this is overall a tremendous effort and kudos to you.

I’ve enjoyed hearing you play with different sounds and styles throughout this competition and this is another new direction where I’m not sure I would want to listen to an entire album of it, but I was into hearing it as a standalone single song. Super inspirational-sounding, and it kind of fuses 80’s and 2010s, like if Max Martin produced a Vangelis album--I dig those deep pulsing synths, and the bendy higher lead. The soaring chorus melody is fantastic and the harmonies work perfectly there. The oh-ohs were divisive within the judging panel… I opined that I would happily never listen to another millennial whoop again, I wasn’t a fan of that part. The modulation is sweet--felt like you were thinking about ways to keep it interesting all the way through. I had some issues with the mix… biggest issue was that it sounds like the lead vocal is panned really heavily to the left, which I found distracting. Lyrically, it’s an interesting perspective, but the “pulling your earlobes/poking your lymph nodes” lines were weird and kind of ugly, and jumped out at me, which might be good if you take the point of view that at least it’s interesting and any attention is good attention, but to me they don’t fit with the style of the song, and I spent more time thinking about those than any of the rest of the lyrics, and not in a positive way. I’m kind of torn about how you approached the challenge aspect of this. On the one hand, I think you sell it really well in your liner notes, and I like that you had a whole conceptual backing for what you did. But on the other hand, when I actually listen, the handclaps feel like a very small part of the song, and the polyrhythm stuff feels slight and almost accidental.