OK, so maybe I'm alone in this estranged view, but Blindside more than anyone else right now proves my point. After being ushered into the mainstream by long time comrades P.O.D. with 2002's Silence, the four Stockholm, Sweden natives have wasted little time to release with their fourth and most perilous album to date.

On this record you're finding Blindside stretching them in a way that is seldom found in the mainstream rock world. Though the attempts were admirable, some of the songs at time seem overdone. The most obvious example of this is found on the Gregorian Chant/yodeling, Charlotte Church-esq singing on "Shekina". What is most aggravating about this particular song is that it really didn't need all of the production around it. Take away the high pitch singing in the background, cellos, and all else that can't be reproduced live and ironically, it's a good song.

Speaking of which, perhaps the most satisfying song on About A Burning Fire and quite frankly the best song on the record overall, happens to be the first single "All of Us." Much like on the majority of Silence, vocalist Christian Lindskog continues to make his voice stand out among all the rest, being able to shift between different vocal styles so effortlessly (which is impressive enough on record alone, let alone on a live show).

Billy Corgan makes a guest appearance on the band's stab at a certain American city on "Hooray, It's L.A." Though it's difficult to decipher whose guitar work is whose at times the cameo does what it should in accentuating the band's strengths and not overshadowing them. And Lindskog's subtle st-st-st-stutter on the chorus comes off to be more cleaver than obnoxious as he sings: "Could you turn around and say / Hooray, it's a beautiful day L.A.... but I think I'll be gone today."

But, unfortunately, by the latter half of the album, the experiments tend to yield less memorable results. The cards played on the opening half of the album fail to work on the closing half as the riffs begin to lose their edge. That is, until the band falls back to compose the acoustic ballad "Roads" featuring a backing cello and trumpet solo that unexpectedly worked by itself, despite the tone of the album displayed before it.

Perhaps even more unexpected is the album's closer that seems to come from nowhere. Right before you think the record is over, the title track, "About a Burning Fire" all but saves the album from being a complete let down. Sharing the same quality as the album's opener "Eye of the Storm", the band is back at their best with lethal sounding guitar riffs and collapsing rhythms topped with Lindskog's end-of-the-world sounding screaming voice that is familiar of Blindside of old, yet not a tiresome photocopy of songs past.

Though there are some places where the band shines, the record largely fails to be as strong as it could have been. Indeed the ambitiousness of this album is noble, but the results on the record are not as splendid. But by some suspicion I have a feeling that the four Swedes will be back with better record the next time around as fast as you can figure out how to say "Möt mig på knä framför hans fötter".

Oh and I guess you can count that Swedish theory of mine to be null and void. This has nothing to do with Blindside's latest at all, though. It's rather that I have just been informed that the '90s supergroup Aqua was too from Sweden. OK, you win.

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