This is rock, no more no less, Burned in Effigy does use a couple of metal riffs here and there but the grunge/metal crossover is obscured by a lacking of vocal power... lacking in metal sound that is, because for a post-grunge band it fits perfectly.

This New London band tries to bring back a couple of “Pantera” like riffs and vocal similarities, sadly they are way too obvious, and they lack power, falling short of a good interpretation and putting themselves in a very bad position of comparison, just listen to War Inside and you’ll understand what I’m saying (this is the song on the player above!).

I have to admit, even when Burned in Effigy doesn’t live up to what their self “propaganda” claims, their press package is pretty cool, folder, record, press pages with band pics, very good promotion work, so in that department they are covered.

I guess my biggest problem with the band is the fact that they try to be metal, but they don’t sound like it, they tried to blend too genres but they forgot the best aspects of both genres, the heaviness of metal and the raw rebellion and catchy melodies of grunge. Most of the problems could be fixed by the addition of a stronger man or woman on vocals, because some of the clean lines sound pretty bad, due to an incapacity to reach long sustained tunes.

Despite all my negative words, I can see Burned in Effigy make a name for themselves in the rock world, they have pretty good guitar players, they are heavy enough for the most common pop listener and they look the part, so expect this guys to be appearing in MTV some time soon.