This debut album is a very solid release. While the material isn't out-of-this world in its artistry or production value, it is definitely a cut above the pop music status quo in these respects. The material really does seem to come from John's heart. John wisely opts to use the lyrics for imagery for much of the album and this serves to add to the dreamy quality of the album as a whole. Despite the release of several albums, I think this one is still his best effort to date.

The SACD version of the album is very nice icing on the cake, so to speak, because the plain CD version already had excellent sound quality. What stands out about the sound quality and production value in both CD & SACD versions is the relatively uncompressed dynamics of the tracks and the reproduction of nuances like John's breathy vocals and the subtle guitar plucking. This is a real refreshing rarity these days when virtually all new pop releases are so heavily compressed and fatiguing that I can't listen for more than five minutes at a time. Unfortunately, great sound quality for mainstream music releases seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Twenty plus years ago, we had dynamic and punchy sounding pop music but now we regressed into the dark ages.