Exactly my feelings. He did talk about a song he heard. Why are we not speculating about that instead ? :-) I am more of a "orchestral" kind of guy than a "new beat" kind of guy. So I am excited about the 108 piece orchestra. I also think IR probably did not take GVM's suggestion of silence/guitar coming in at this point etc literally, but probably had that as a model and delivered with the right amount of silence/musical flourish at the right times.
Very good possibility, this is going to be a good album. The key to getting the most out of IR is picking the right tune. Looks like IR did give him a mix with drums and guitar as well to get an idea which probably is a departure for IR from the past. So I am hoping GVM got good tunes. If the tunes are good, IR will write super orchestration as well. The lyricists also seem to be indirectly influenced to do a better job. Overall I continue to be positive, even though the waiting is killing :-)