XAD are band that I know from Amsterdam. They are fronted by Ted Egger, and a supporting cast of drummers, bass players and keyboard players who have changed in the years that I have known Ted.
They have one EP on iTunes called Distant Future. It contains 4 songs. I've seen XAD live in various forms around Amsterdam. The first thing that will strike you is that Ted is not a singer. Christina Aguilera's job is safe. He's pretty awful, but whether he has 'wee man syndrome' or whether he is tone deaf and thinks he can sing - he is awful with confidence. This puts us firmly and squarely in the grunge vocal department. He kind of sounds like a love sick Mark Arm(Mudhoney)
The EP opens with 1981. The sound is very dense and busy, but the melodies are strong and poppy. This shows off the music's Smashing Pumpkins influences, and the track sounds like a cross between the Stooges and Adore-Era pumpkins.
On track 2 - Death Forever, the themes of lost love are more potent. As with the first track, the vocals are doubled. This makes them slightly less grating, but in places the vocals sound like Officer Zed from the Police Academy movies. The video for the song is shown below.
No time for us - More obvious electronic beats, and more ponderous complaining of past lost love. This is my least favourite track on the EP. A directionless guitar solo highlights the downer mood of the track. The video for the song is shown below.
Track 4 - Tangerine Dream picks the pace up somewhat by returning to the dense 'industrial pop' sound. It isn't as strong as tracks one and two though.
All in all - XAD is quite a strange experience. I can easily relate to it through the strong grunge and Smashing Pumpkins overtones, but the downer nature of the music means that I think a full album in this mood would be quite a challenging listen. The dense wall of over produced instruments is mixed quite well, but this and the thickly effected vocals builds a barrier between band and listener, so although emotions are bared throughout the songs, there are big bridges to cross to relate to the musical content. The Melodies are however, highly infectious which makes you come back again and again. I think if Ted can put an album together, there will be a hardcore fan base of disaffected love sick teenagers who will fall in love with his music.
XAD FB page
iTunes link
Amazon Link
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