Please critique this hard rock-metal mix

Hi Guys!  Was wondering if you could take a few mins to let me know what you think of this one.  I've been out of the recording game for a while and just purchased sonar platinum and dove back into it.
 
FYI ignore the little tempo flubs and the fact that the lyrics repeat in the 2nd verse.  Lol this was just mixing and mastering practice for me in order to get a workflow and template together in platinum.  I got together with a couple guys I used to play with and we did a quick live recording in the basement of one of our originals(song is called illusion).  Then I went back and multitracked filler tracks after the fact.  Needless to say we were a little rusty and it shows at times(some elements of the live performance were actually kept).  
 
So im more interested in what you think of the overall mix and master if you dont mind :)
 
Thanks!
 
https://soundcloud.com/gr...aster-from-sonar256k-2
 
 

Appreciate the feedback, and youre right.  It is pretty squished!  I was going for a vibe similar to a mix from 'disturbed' if that gives you any idea of where my head was at.
 
That said...  once we retrack this and make everything final, we will be putting in harmonies and a more complimentary guitar for the verse as well as some production effects for the lead vox and stuff(an occasional echo or a stereo effect or something to that effect).
 
although it will still be squished...  bringing that stuff in and out and riding the vocal a little more and playing with volume will help me give at least slightly more of an appearance of dynamics.  At least I hope lol.  I literally did not automate anything in this mix.  Once the faders were set, they stayed where they were and thus far I havent focused at all on making the mix move, so to speak.
 
hah and the bass has been a hot button for me.  I was feeling the same thing you are feeling with it not poking through well.  I did a lot of playing around to get more note definition and eventually I started to think my ears were playing tricks on me and maybe I "want" to hear it more than I should be hearing it.  Im glad you mention it though because it does tell me that I have to rethink how we recorded it so that the starting point has a little more note definition and I dont have to fight so hard to artificially add it.
 
as far as the drums go...  it is partially a matter of stubbornness on my part.  That is my acoustic kit recorded with nothing more than a set of cad premium drum mics(the 270 dollar 7 piece set).
 
I really wanted to see just how far I could push the acoustic drums without taking advantage of any of the drum replacement/samples within sonar.
 
again though I greatly appreciate the feedback.  It does confirm some of the things that I was feeling and it tells me for sure I need to go back to the drawing board in some areas