The most surprising track is "Shekina," which features Garmarna, a world music folk band, vocalist Emma Hardelin doing some yodeling. I don't know if that's actually yodeling, but several reviews have referred to it as such, so it sounds good to me. The entire track sounds like something which should land in the world music section at music stores. My claim to cred is that I've actually heard of Garmarna before and investigated them on allmusicguide.com prior to knowing of Hardelin's involvement with Blindside.

Of course, the track which everyone will take notice of is "Hooray, It's LA," thanks to featuring guitar playing by Billy Corgan, of The Smashing Pumkins and Zwan fame. His guitar playing is nice. And so is the song. It's got a catchy chorus and the guitars sound spooky during the verses. (Christians will want to make note that this song also is home to the only swear word on the record, damn.)

The cd closes with "About A Burning Fire" which, to those who have only listened to "Silence," will give them a pretty good idea what "A Thought Crushed My Mind" might have sounded like. It's the most hardcore song on the album, and probably the one old Blindside fans will like the most.

All in all I'm fairly pleased. It could have been a lot worse and offers us a lot of hope for the future. I will probably listen to this a lot more than I have "A Thought Crushed My Mind." Now, "Blindside" will still be my favorite, and will still claim that "A Thought Crushed My Mind" is better, but this new one will allow me to actually listen to it and enjoy the experience.