After 3 listens, I can say I definitely like it better than Untethered Angel.
Great opening riffs by JP as usual. MM's drums sound good to me, and his fills on this song are really nice.
A couple issues with James' vocals - neither his fault. I'm not crazy about the verse vocal melody. It's definitely not bad, but it just sounds very predictable and safe. Almost sounds like I've heard this exact melody in another MM-era DT song. (Which leads me to think - this song sounds like it would fit right in on DT12.)
The main thing I don't like about James' vocals though is the choices of effects. Again, not his fault. James has an incredible studio voice, but the effects used makes him sound so...plastic and distant. AKA too much Chorus and Reverb. Same problem on Untethered Angel. I wish we could just hear James' natural voice once in awhile, with a touch of reverb and compression, maybe some inaudible delay, and that's it.
Anyway, back to the good. The structure is very cool. It's like a 7 minute epic, structurally, how the song comes to a halt and builds back up. I love the Floydian section around 3:20. I feel that acoustic melodies that JP has created here will be very memorable, and this part really lifts the song. Instead of a technical solo, he opted for a more simple, repeating melody that's really effective IMO.
More good - I LOVE that Jordan is rocking the hammond! I've always much preferred the organ sound to his more synthesized sound, and he really kills that solo.
Even more good - I like the hook. It's far from my favorite, but I think it will continue to grow on me.
My one biggest fear with this song is that it'll come down with DT12 syndrome. That is - being awesome at first, but in the grand scheme of things, becoming somewhat forgettable. Forgettable when compared against DT's classic songs, that is. But only time will tell, and for now I really like this song!
I'd probably give it a B, possibly a B+