CD Title: Invitation To The Dance

WEA/London/Sire Records

By Adam Bowman

Granted, a distorted guitar is a distorted guitar.....is a distorted guitar. Everybody reading this has heard a screaming lead singer and a distorted guitar at one point of their life. It's this principle that 40 Below Summer can thrive on, as their debut album Invitation To The Dance features guitar riffs that get the job done and nothing else. The guys are there to rock, and tell you how it feels to suffer. We've heard these stories before, so why is this album anything special?

As the name implies, 40 Below Summer makes a stab at a paradoxical musical style; a heavy metal band ("Rope", "Smile Electric") that tries to maintain a sense of variety ("Falling Down"). Throughout the album, there is more than a good amount of Hector Graziani's bass slipped in, and Max Illidge's screams are pretty much a staple in the band's arsenal of tricks. The bottom line is that the album is not going to revolutionize the world of metal as we know it, and paradoxically, that's its strong point. Invitation To The Dance rocks throughout, and you know what to expect when you head into the next track. Fortunately, the band's arrangement of songs keeps from repetition being too much of a problem, and essentially gives the album decent replay value. The only warning I do have to give, though, is this: don't try to sing along...you'll probably strain something. Other than that, these New Jersey boys have a fine debut on their hands.