This is a totally new Heather Nova, and the music will appeal to diehard Nova fans as well as newcomers. A disappointment in some of Nova's previous CDs has been the lack of new material (though her haunting lyricism is always a treat, whether recycled or not), but this one is all new and all Heather Nova. It's an older, smarter, more wry poet than the one who brought us "Sugar," but the young Heather is still audible in her signature style. Some critics have drawn parallels between Heather Nova and Cheryl Crow, do doubt based on the rappy "Virus of the Mind," but Heather Nova was making that sound when Crow was still teaching school in Missouri. Crow made it familiar and made us love it, though, and while this may be the album that gives Heather Nova the fame and fortune she deserves, it may bring with it the curse of being judged "like" other performers, even though Nova was there first. But who cares? Nova fans who are approaching middle age -- like me -- just want to kick back and hear Heather keep on rockin' to a different drummer. Anything else is just a virus of the mind.