Hey Kenny,
The praise means a lot coming from a piano/keyboard player of your skill level. Hopefully my dynamic awareness is finally starting to shape up.
The piano part was written first with the intention of the solo somewhat following the melody given there. It didn’t quite work out that way, which can be distracting (though my ears got used to it very fast). The digital harshness has been there from the very first production, presumably because I am using virtual instruments for everything! Perhaps there is a plug-in that would remedy this?