This is the first album I've purchased online for download - I've gotten a couple of songs before, but this was the first where I decided to buy it online instead or getting the CD. The minor flirtation with SACDs aside, that's the first buying change for me music-wise since 1987, when I started buying CDs instead of albums. (Hope weird is that - that I can date precisely when I started buying CDs?)
I've listened to the album not quite twice now (granted, both times with three boys in the back playing SpongeBob on DS, so not an ideal sound environment), and while the title track is interesting, there's nothing here that stands out - certainly nothing like Follow Me from Imaginary Day. What I'm always listening for is the next The First Circle, and I haven't heard anything comparable since Still Life Talking. I have not yet finished studying the concept behind the album - that of the "orchestrion", which Metheny explains here. But I'm sure I'll be listening to it some more on my upcoming trip on the headphones, so we'll see if it grows on me. I know I have a pronounced tendency not to like anything by an artist I know the first time I hear it, so I need to listen a few more times to figure out whether my opinion is simply because this isn't the same as the last album, or because I really just don't care for it. At this point, it's too early to say either way for sure. I just know that at this stage I was head over heels for Follow Me (although ti suffered from the problem of not having an ending, which is a different issues). For me that means me blasting it on the stereo in the study at home, walking in circles around the sofa as I listen. I only do that rarely these days, so it's unusual when it happens. Doubt I'll do that here (and I can't play the thing through the stereo yet anyway).