Forget what you presume to know about contemporary hard rock right now. Forget the notion that it is supposed to be littered with vapid lyrics and gnashing vocal styling. Forget the idea that the average song structure must be reduced to an alternating thunder and crunch style. Banish all of these preposterous ideas to the Land of Wind and Ghosts; then run out to buy The Nationale Blue's newest record A Different Kind of Listening.

This Boston threesome is true to the title of their release - it is indeed a different kind of listening and consequently ranks among the most challenging and sprawling records I've heard recently. Within each track there exists more stages and unpredictable progressions than in the entire Blink-182 catalog. This comparison isn't even remotely fair to these upstarts; The Nationale Blue is more the product of an electronic drunk Thurston Moore's imagination than anything else (oh, also pretend Ian MacKaye showed up half way through the recording session with crumpled notes to offer). "Silver Alien Pyjamas in II Movements" is worth the purchase price itself, running and chasing for a breathtaking seven minutes of half-mad dream. Listen two times to "Verbal Aproxia" and three times to "Hot Wet Kisses in the Dark" then tell me when you last heard something similar.

The point of departure for The Nationale Blue is their tendency to fuse aggression, arguably the keystone of their hard rocking style, with a concern for structure. Moments of fury are earned; beautiful restraint the price: repeated listens required.