I’ll admit it right now—when Sweden’s Blindside first captured the attention of America’s disaffected youth (groups) with A Thought Crushed My Mind, I wasn’t that impressed. I had several friends who were absolutely obsessed (particularly with the manic refrain of “I’M A VAMPIRE!” from “King of the Closet”) but it didn’t do anything for me. Which is odd, considering that 1) they were the undisputed third member of a trinity that also included Project 86 and P.O.D.—two of the bands that got me to care about music in the first place—and 2) I most certainly wouldn’t have “known better.”

But a few years later, while watching the skateboarding film Grind, I was entranced by a band performing during a competition scene. I did some digging and realized that this was the same Blindside that did the goofy vampire song. Everything about it entranced me. I even asked my amateur stylist girlfriend for the lead singer’s haircut (we didn’t quite get it). I tracked down a copy of both Silence and the following album About a Burning Fire and wore them out. And I’m not afraid to confess that I rebought CD copies of each as recently as last year.

And I’ll further own up to the fact that I spent exactly zero seconds deliberating over this reissue—bizarre new cover art aside. And though I expected to enjoy “Pitiful” and a couple other tracks and cringe through the deep cuts, I found it far more consistent than I remembered it being.

A Thought Crushed My Mind may not have been my cup of tea, but it brought Blindside a ton of attention. And not just from edgy Christian kids. They netted a major label deal through Elektra. Silence, their major label debut, shows why they deserved all that attention in the first place, sanding down the rough nu-metal edges and finishing it off with a powerful blend of anthemic post-hardcore and alternative metal. It’s not unlike White Pony, but more in terms of artistic shifts than in terms of a Focus on the Family poster suggesting what Christian bands you should listen to instead of those evil secular bands (though Blindside was almost certainly listed opposite Deftones on those posters. And also Chevelle. Though, they were maybe a Christian band too?).

There are still plenty of muscular riffs and syncopated bass lines (the bassist even still had his white dreadlocks at this point—which is the strongest evidence besides “Coming Back to Life” that they hadn’t completely shed their nu-metal origins), but there’s a bigger emphasis on songwriting, offering banger after banger—even after the first three tracks, which were all singles). The biggest selling point though has to be the mercurial voice of Christian Lindskog, whose vocal chords are stretched to the limit as he shifts from screams to falsetto to full-voiced melodies at the top of his register, and even a few moments that might edge a little close to yodeling in technique for most hardcore kids to be comfortable with (see: “Sleepwalking“. And please note that I mean nothing pejorative about that).

While there’s certainly some bloat in the track list, that’s more a byproduct of being a major label release in the CD era than anything. Certain tracks have aged more poorly than others (again, “Coming Back to Life”), but nothing here is objectively bad. But when this record is on, it is dead on. The opening trio of “Caught a Glimpse,” “Pitiful,” and “Sleepwalking” is pure fist-pumping adrenaline, but tracks like “Cute Boring Love” and “Thought Like Flames” are just as good. Then there’s the somber title track that closes the electric record with a long, plaintive sigh.

Given how much of its contemporaries (and I mean early aughts hard rock in general—not just Christian bands) have aged like milk, offering curdled cringiness where there was once soul-filling nourishment, the fact that this album remains listenable would be enough. But that it’s actually largely enjoyable is a much more impressive feat.