The Last Dance

How’s this for an unexpected career progression? The lead singer for New Jersey post-hardcore act 40 Below Summer, Max Illidge, was the little kid on David Byrne’s back in the 1983 video for Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.” That factoid is by itself more interesting than the entirety of Last Dance, a posthumous release from this minor act that consists of nine unfinished-sounding demos for their uncompleted final album and a poorly-shot DVD of the band’s final performance. Not only that, but the best of the nine songs on the CD is a cover of Guns N’ Roses’ “It’s So Easy.” Normally, one says that a closet-cleaning release like Last Dance is strictly for fans, but in this case, even fans might feel slightly cheated by this chintzy, bare-bones effort at a proper farewell. – Stewart Mason