I always enjoy reading a nostalgic review of a favorite album. While I'm not a true audiophile in the sense that I'm willing to settle for digital and don't want to fuss with vinyl, it sounds like the experience of hearing the layers of this album in a new way made your purchase more than worthwhile.

A few random comments:

I wouldn't say that the acoustic guitars are "gone" here, but the songs definitely don't have the characteristic "Jars of Clay strum" that we all would have expected based on what we loved about their first album at the time.

I believe "Fade to Grey" was left off of the self-titled album because they ran out of time/money and couldn't record it at the time. They said something about this during the February StageIt show and I forgot specifically what they said.

"Weighed Down" has never been one of my favorites, but since the chord progression was pretty much the same as "4:7", I figured they were intentionally subverting our expectations due to that song having a huge drum/guitar breakdown and this one being more... well, "weighed down".

The thing I always remember about "Truce" is that weird disco breakdown they used to do in the middle of it (as heard on Stringtown). I figured they were referencing some other song, but I didn't know what song specifically until a few months ago when I heard Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy", and I was like, "Oooooooooohhh, I get it now!" You gotta love 15-year-long delayed reactions.

You're right about the end of the album needing a pacing adjustment. If they had left out "Truce" (or even worse, if they'd included "Fly Farther" - which is one of my favorite Jars songs, by the way), that might have tipped the scale to the point where the album felt too "slow" for alot of fans of their previous album to get into. It was a challenge as it was, with only three or four truly up-tempo or "rock" songs on the album. It's my favorite Jars album now, but my 18-year-old self took a lot more convincing.

I love that you pay so much attention to the pacing of an album and the order of its songs. You're right that it's becoming a lost art. I was beginning to feel like I was one of the few folks who still paid attention to this, and who still listened to albums front to back, hardly ever skipping a song, here and now in this "digital age". I figure a good album is supposed to take you on a journey with a definite beginning and end point, and I appreciate when an artist is attentive enough to order their songs in such a fashion, rather than just front-loading it with potential singles and letting most of the back half be filler/B-side material, with no real though to the order other than "start with a few fast songs, close with a tear-jerking and/or unplugged 'See, I can play coffeehouse style too!'-type ballad."