It's nice to see Momentum here, though personally, I'm not sure if I would rank it this high. For me, I don't feel like it has aged well, though it certainly has aged better than say, Lifeline, but the epic is just so over-long for me. I would rather listen to "Alive Again" or "Seeds Of Gold". The shorter songs are all OK, with "Thoughts Part V" being the stand-out among them. Neal has done better albums with this similar format - a handful of short songs with a huge closing epic, like V and TGE, and I think they're better than Momentum in almost every way possible. Maybe I just haven't spun the whole album in a long while, but I haven't really felt the urge to back and listen to it in a couple of years. I feel like Neal was definitely trying to push for new ideas and sounds here and there, like with "Freak" and "Smoke And Mirrors", but they still end up sounding like Neal. I do like that he cut out the middle part of "Momentum" to tighten it up, and just to drop the over-used and cliched bridge with the piano bit that he seems to enjoy a lot in those kinds of songs. Dropping it really allowed the song to keep it's, well...momentum, especially as the album opener!
I think, if I have time this weekend, I'll spin this one again and see how I feel about it, and see if it has gotten better for me. I know I really enjoyed the live versions of the songs from the Live Momentum, which is a killer album from the proto-NMB. I think of Momentum had been FULLY done by the NMB, it might have had a bit more "oomph" to it, which is why I would LOVE to see them perform the whole album at Morsefest, just to hear more of Eric and Bill on it than what they initially recorded.
-Marc.