"Seeds Of Gold" - a typical Neal Morse epic with multiple parts/movements, and the lyrics aren't has terribly in-your-face as some of his recent albums! It sounds like something he could have done with SB or TA, lyrically speaking, AND musically speaking. I will agree with Kev that there are a lot of keyboards in the piece, but I like keyboards, especially when Neal plays them. If you want guitar in this song, you've got it near the end with Steve Morse's epic solo, followed by the big recapitulation of the opening themes, in only the way Neal does!
Mike and Randy do a great job backing up Neal, but I haven't had much of a CLOSE listen to really hear their parts, but it sounds like they're really locked in to Neal's music, as usual, and provide a great rhythm section for Neal's palette of sounds.
"Absolute Beginner" - Nice opening, and it reminds of me so many of Neal's single-sounding rock songs (like "King Jesus" from
One), and this time it's complete with a fade-out! lol It's very listen-able and fun and positive and uplifting, and I love that Neal can write great music in this vein! So energetic and rocking, you can't help but smile and nod along to this song all the way to the end!
"Supernatural" - The opening guitar reminds me of some of his Pre-
Testimony solo songs, which is a good thing. He had some great songs on his first two solo albums! This is another good song and the synth-motif that comes back is very hum-able and catchy! Neal knows how to get a melody stuck in your head!
Upon first impression, this whole disc, even though it's 3 tracks, I might have to rank above the entirety of
Lifeline and it's 7 tracks. Something about that album never really stuck with me, but these 3 tracks sound very fresh and powerful to me whereas most of
Lifeline sounded very rehashed to me at the time of its release.
-Marc.