This album builds on Metheny's Grammy-winning album Unity Band both conceptually and compositionally. This artistic growth of the group, who, with the addition of multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi used to broaden their tonal resources, is expressed most plainly on two key tracks, ‘On Day One,’ which lasts 15 minutes 15 seconds, and ‘Sign of the Season’, which lasts 10 minutes 14 seconds. Using extended ad hoc compositional forms, the role of the improviser is less the free flowing blowing of the Unity Band, but one of working within the compositional structures of each piece in a way that extends and enhances the composer's original expressive intentions. Thus these pieces, together with ‘Rise Up’, another extended composition of almost 12 minutes, are closer to the romantically inclined, soaring melodicism of the Pat Metheny Group, yet retaining the energy of the Unity Band. It's a crafty duality that makes for this album's appeal from an artist whose musical curiosity remains undiminished as he approaches his 60th birthday.