XDS (Experimental Dental School) - Forest Field

Self Released October 13, 2009

 

If Green Acres, not the show itself, but just the theme song were beamed into space in the 60s this is what we would get back from the far reaches of the universe - XDS (Experimental Dental School). Jesse Hall and Shoko Horikawa comprise this guitar/bass and drums duo, with aluminum foil over amps and break neck speeds bringing up images of garage imitating noise rock.

Crescendos tiptoe around the drums, always skating over droning strings, but coming in and out of transmissions with vocals that frost over before they fully take shape, either shouting or intoning. Guitar hunts drums, drums hunt guitar. Seeking each other in the woods, turning the tables on the charade, the hunter goes bare naked into the woods, the fox and horses arm themselves with weapons and there goes la la la all throughout Royal Fantasy Show. Other bits sort of fizzle out, like Square Wave Cave building up to some sort of life changing climax, only to die like all our hopes and dreams before.

XDS @ The Smell 10/01/09

With guitar/bass duos, there is always room for a solo, and though this may irk on absurd for brief moments, those seem to be far and few between for XDS. Horikawa singsongs on Vicious Cycle of Life, showing that the band isn’t all about mayhem and stop-go rhythm, though that daydream is short lived as the Dark Stars In Daylight cascades over the land, with saber sharp guitar and other anomalies. We’re faced with the question, if these two were to have songs going over the four-minute mark, where would that leave us? As we wander with their sounds on Forest Field we become marooned on some distant planet, always wondering what other territory could be explored.