40 Below Summer — Invitation To The Dance

Even among a lot of nu metal fans, 40 Below Summer may not be a name that garners much recognition. During the peak of the genre, the band was never able to distinguish themselves from their contemporaries, having ended up on some unsuccessful tours, they would see their record label (London-Sire Records) implode shortly after the release of Invitation To The Dance. The band would fade further into obscurity before breaking up, reforming and breaking up again to the notice and presumed disappointment of dozens.

Ironically, 40 Below Summer were among the more talented bands in the genre — essentially the reverse of a Crazy Town, who exploded in popularity despite only the barest musical capability. The stylistic diversity shown on Invitation to the Dance is really impressive, with tight change-ups and transitions between intense breakdowns and melodic passages. The heavy-soft-heavy dynamic was very much a staple of the genre, but this record executes with a capability well above average.

"Falling Down" is my favourite example of the band's stop-on-a-dime switch-ups, as it opens with a series of chunky chords and primal screams, and within a minute the track has alternated between a melodic chorus and a series of pummeling riffs. Some criticisms of this album are that the band feels somewhat directionless, forcing together too many different ideas in each song. There is some merit to that, but I found everything sufficiently coherent.

The whole album is very well produced and engineered. The nuances of the drumming really stood out to me; this is another one of those nu metal records with a tremendous rhythm section. For an album I hadn't actively thought about in almost two decades, I started listening to Invitation To The Dance and the lyrics and riffs to most of the songs immediately bubbled up from the deepest recesses of my memory. Suddenly it's the year 2000 again, and I'm late getting a review of this record done for a webzine I write for. (The more things change, the more they stay the same...)

While I still consider myself a nu metal fan, there is no denying that a lot of the genre's material did not age well at all. Invitation To The Dance stands out in that regard, and even makes me wonder why 40 Below Summer weren't more successful. This is one of the nu metal genre's better offerings outside of the big, obvious hits.

Summary

An album that came and went with little fanfare, a little more than a month after 9/11. 40 Below Summer never realized their full potential, but did drop a solid nu metal record in Invitation To The Dance. Extremely representative of what second and third-tier nu metal bands were doing at the genre's zenith, with well above average execution.

Album Information

Release date: October 16th, 2001
Record label: Reprise / Warner Brothers Records

Max Illidge — vocals
Joey D'Amico — guitar
Jordan Plingos — guitar
Hector Graziani — bass
Carlos Aguilar — drums, piano
Gggarth Richardson — producer
Michael Baskette — sound engineer

Track Listing

1. We the People
2. Rope
3. Still Life
4. Wither Away
5. Step into the Sideshow
6. Falling Down
7. Smile Electric
8. Rejection
9. Power Tool
10. Drown
11. Minus One
12. Jonesin'

Link: Spotify

—by Derek

Published: May 10th, 2023.