Silky smooth. Almost too smooth. Drums patter along under lulling, numbed synth waves while whispertalk rolls over them like a velvet red carpet. Trying not to slip into a peaceful slumber is actually difficult. Sweden’s latest chillrock, coming from The Radio Dept. conjures Slowdive and the like on their urban-edged, nighttime album, Pet Grief, at the intersection of synthpop and slowrock, backlit with shoegaze.

The highly comforting, interstellar sound flows throughout the album, and at it’s peaks, hatches a new wave beat continuity with a numbing effect broken only by piano crashes and lite guitar riffs. Reserved, cozy, and poignant.

The Radio Dept.’s myspace page

Nothing makes me want to slap a band more than when they bitch about how crappy a magazine gig is, seeing as they’re the sell-out whores, and they’re the ones being paid for it. Unbusted whined, and the Walkmen didn’t seem to give a crap, for which I will forever curse them for being such crappy sell-outs.

The Walkmen whipped out a couple popular tunes, mostly played their new, uninspiring material, and finished with “The Rat” as if they were doing us all a huge favor. The venue, the Cycloramatronomatic, is a huge, round room with brick floors and a pointed ceiling, aka the worst possible room to have a concert in.

Unbusted got rocked by the sounds of their own failures. Forget that the Cyclotronarama’s acoustics. They just sucked. Just watching the drummer made me feel like I needed elbow surgery. The highlight of the night was possibly mocking the crappy Honda Fit. 107 hp? My tricycle has more than that.

Saariaho didn’t use any woodwinds or brass, but instead chose to slap our skulls with nothing but sour, sliding violins in some sort of dark, avant garde mysterium. It was like a schizophrenic wolf running around a forest, killing everything and not knowing why.

Then Piotr Anderszewski – yeah – was the pianist who doth rocketh Beethoven all the way back to the old school. Homeboy, mit supafly jacket that I need to buy, tossed out Piano Concerto No. 1 in mind-dissolving Beethoven cascading thunder, which pretty much everyone dug. Solid.

Finally, the BSO whipped out two Sibelius joints, The Bard (a harp ditty), and Symphony No. 3, which was solidly triumphant. The harp was tight, as you would imagine, and the symphony was sorta like an old school Finnish anthem that celebrated winning a war, instead of losing one, which they usually do. All in all, I got a bit dozy, but I’m sure everyone else did. Our seats were ridiculous, as was the diamond on the woman next to me. Big, big pimpin.

BSO.org info page