AWRIZIS are a Czech band from the city of Havirov. As of now, they have two full-lengths released via Pařát Magazine and MetalGate, respectively. Today, we'll take a look at the sophomore effort of the two, "Dreadful Reflection", unleashed on March 25th.

The Metal Archives website classifies them as Death/Groove/Thrash Metal, so I was (pleasantly) surprised by "Blinded By Rays Of Light"'s intro, which opens the album, it's a clean guitargasm you'd usually hear in second and third-wave Metalcore. Fortunately and unfortunately, the whole record's biggest strength and greatest weakness are perfectly manifested in this kickoff song, the group's musical and vocal approach.

The songwriting, which is (mostly) one of the biggest breaths of fresh air I've heard in a long time, in terms of metal at least. It has that orthodox thrashy Death appeal going for it, which I'm sure a lot of you will like, but there are also an unexpected amount of pretty upbeat and happy-sounding riffs and such, like in the intro to "Wildheart", and the second half of "Burn The Flame", which is dominated by that idea, and I've gotta say, that song is probably my favourite on this entire thing.

Another thing I found much appeal in is the way they contrasted the different styles. Again, int he case of "Burn The Flame", the way the MEGADETH-influenced Thrash solo follows up the short Black Metal tremolo parts somehow feels so organic, I have no idea how, but it perfectly does. However, possibly due to track no. 6's awesomeness, the two songs following it ("Eaten By Passion" and "Lost and Cursed") kind of come off as fairly stale and uninspired, just like "All in One", but at least that one has some semi-cool Black Metal elements.

One thing I found funny is how on "Burn The Flame" (I promise this is the last time I mention that song) Frodys sounds completely like if Lemmy tried to do harshes. I don't know whether or not that was intentional or not, but yeah, there's that. Speaking of the vocals, it is the "greatest weakness" I mentioned earlier. It's not just completely forgettable, it's borderline annoying at some points. Even the production, which is near-perfection with the instrumentals is well... shit. I assume they were going for a very, I guess "dirty" type of sound, but it doesn't go well with the music, or is good as it's own thing at all.

Verdict: You can't really go wrong with this one, honestly. I recommend skipping some songs, but I can wholeheartadly say this is a good album. Worth a strong 7.