Review of 40 Below Summer - Sideshow Freaks

Some people need to get more current with information technology, because this is how records like this happen. No one got the memo that Nu-metal was found dead in an alley with its Korn shirt torn to pieces, raped, stabbed, raped again and set on fire by a horde of people with good taste. This was probably just an OK album back in 2000 when it was originally released, but today, this is a great album only if for some reason you wake up every day thinking, “If only there was another band who sounded exactly like Hed(pe).” Why would you think that?

I will give them credit for having a great production that unleashes a pretty solid rhythm section, too bad they waste their time on this tripe. The drumming is pretty solid and in fact gets into something of an Igor Cavalera tribal thing here and there and the bass sound actually reminds me of Steve Digiorgio’s stint with Death, although this album is not nearly on that level. The vocals are a mixture of rapping and distorted screaming, with occasionally whiny clean vocals to break up the monotony. The guitar patterns are the usual jagged chugging you would expect of this sort of metal. Yeah, just the same few power chords over and over again ad infinitum. Of course they also include a slow trippy opening, just to make sure they got everything on the checklist.

Even with 2 bonus tracks Sideshow Freaks is  short album at forty-four minutes but somehow it takes an eternity to get through. I would go on but it would just be as repetitive as the guitars on this album. This album might have gone over better five to ten years ago when it first came out, but now, as a re-issue, it just sounds dated, in addition to being derivative and bad. Three strikes boys, get out.