Skip to main content

Bow Accordingly, The Eternal Tyrant Has Arrived: Burned in Effigy - Tyrannus Aeternum (Eternal Tyrant) (Album Review) Released: 10/31/25

 

Chicago's own Burned in Effigy have been building toward something monumental, and with Tyrannus Aeternum, they've delivered exactly that: a sophomore record that doesn't just meet the sky-high expectations set by their acclaimed 2022 debut Rex Mortem, but shatters them entirely. For the uninitiated, Burned in Effigy is not your average melodic death metal group. The band occupies a rarified space where classical composition meets the ferocity of extreme metal, a sound they've dubbed "neoclassical melodic death metal," and one they wear with total conviction. Vocalist Mark Smedbron is a force unto himself, wielding his voice like a weapon forged equally for brutality and melody. Guitarists Mike Hisson and Steve Bacakos are nothing short of virtuosic, weaving intricate, harmonically rich riffs and lead work that owes as much to a conservatory education as it does to the underground. Founding members Matt Watkins on bass and Eddie Dec on drums anchor the chaos with precision and power, providing a rhythmic foundation that is both technically demanding and relentlessly driving.

Tyrannus Aeternum, meaning "Eternal Tyrant," is a fitting title for an album that commands authority from the first note to the last. The record is expansive in scope, its architecture clearly influenced by the neoclassical tradition: dramatic dynamics, sweeping melodic arcs, and a sense of grandiosity that elevates the material well beyond the genre's typical fare. Yet none of this grandeur comes at the cost of aggression. When this band wants to pummel, they pummel, and they do so with the kind of controlled, calculated intensity that only comes from years of refining a craft. Fans of The Black Dahlia Murder will find much to love in the band's melodic sensibility and vocal interplay, while devotees of Inferi will appreciate the technical depth and sheer compositional ambition on display. But Burned in Effigy is very much their own entity, a band that has clearly taken time to find its sound rather than settle for imitation.

The journey to this album has been earned. After Rex Mortem turned heads at leading heavy music publications and landed the band on stages alongside icons like Orbit Culture, Obscura, and Revocation, Burned in Effigy could have rushed a follow-up to capitalize on the momentum. Instead, they went back to work painstakingly refining, perfecting, and ultimately delivering a record that feels like a statement of purpose. This is a band that knows exactly who they are and exactly where they're headed.
Tyrannus Aeternum is mandatory listening for any fan of modern melodic death metal. With talent scouts already taking notice and the band setting their sights on a full U.S. campaign and eventually the world, this feels less like an album release and more like the opening salvo of a conquest.


Go check out their track Crown Crusher, because the eternal tyrant has arrived, and you must bow accordingly:

Go give them a follow on Instagram: Burned In Effigy
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Bonfire Built for Burning Down Egos: Saving Vice - Straw Dogs (Track Review) Released: 10/4/25

Saving Vice is the embodiment of metalcore excellence and a powerhouse rising out of New England, specifically Burlington, Vermont, and they've never been afraid to get confrontational, but “Straw Dogs” is the band at their most venomous, theatrical, and unapologetically hostile. Consisting of Tyler Small, Robbie Litchfield, Alex Chan, and Sam Willey, the band channels pure contempt into a track that feels like a ritual execution set to music. If Saving Vice’s catalog is a gallery of emotional extremes, “Straw Dogs” is the piece where the frame catches fire. This song in particular revolves around a single yet brutal idea: some people are built of nothing but dry straw, and all it takes is a spark to expose how hollow they really are. The narrator tears into a target who poses as powerful but collapses under scrutiny, and this is someone loud, insecure, and inflated by their own myth. The imagery is vicious: boiling blood, collapsing thrones, paper crowns, inbred worms, a few co...
Post a Comment
Read more

Baptized in Hatred that Draws First Blood: LYCVNS - TEETH feat. Carlos Guzman of Feels Like Karma (Track Review) Released: 4/5/26

  Some songs ease you in, and then some songs grab you by the throat before you even realize what's happening. "TEETH" by LYCVNS is firmly the latter. From the very first line: I'll make you fucking  swallow  teeth,  this  track makes its intentions crystal clear, and it never once blinks, never once softens, never once apologizes for what it is. This is heavy music made by people who aren't playing a character. This is the real thing. LYCVNS arrives with a lineup that feels assembled with a specific kind of violence in mind. Erin Medrano (Fallen Condition) leads on vocals, and what immediately separates him from the pack is that nothing about his delivery feels performed. There's no posturing here, no calculated aggression for the sake of fitting a mold. Every line he delivers sounds like it's coming from somewhere genuine and unresolved, like he's pulling these words out of something he's been carrying for a long time. That authenticity is rare...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kentucky's Heavy Secret: Stormtoker - These Edibles Ain't Shit (EP Review) Released: 12/5/25

  Lexington, Kentucky, isn't exactly the first city that comes to mind when you think of the sludge and stoner metal underground, but Stormtoker seems intent on changing that. Their EP These Edibles Ain't Shit arrives like a slow, crushing wave of amplifier worship and chemically-assisted existential dread, and it makes a compelling case that the Bluegrass State has something mean and heavy brewing beneath its surface. Stormtoker is a fierce, impassioned force of nature, a band that feels like devout disciples of Ozzy Osbourne who came of age at the turn of the millennium but refused to let the roots of heavy metal die.  With sonic DNA tracing back to Cream, Hendrix, King Crimson, and even Arthur Brown, they summon an alluring sound that entrances as much as it pummels. This is a band equally at home in the sludge pit and the alt-rock headspace, a melodic restlessness running beneath the downtuned grime that keeps things unpredictable and owing as much to the 90s alternative u...
Post a Comment
Read more