Artist: Hostilia
Country: Sweden
Label: Hammerheart Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2025
Personally I had never heard of Hostilia before, but before this debut full-length album for Hammerheart Records they apparently released two EP’s and a couple of digital singles. Yet, even if you were like me and ‘Face The Fire’ is your first encounter with this Swedish band, I am sure they feel just as familiar to you as they did for me. This is some feel-good Thrash without any desire to reinvent the genre or to change any of its fundamentals.
The band had a good couple of line-up changes, including for the position of vocalist, but eventually Hostilia settled with Tim Angelini who was deemed suitable to lead the band. Because, in Thrash Metal, it is mainly the vocals that often make or break it. Now I must admit that I had to listen to ‘Face The Fire’ quite a few times before I could come to terms with Tim’s voice. And to be even more honest, he is still not my favourite singer, but he does fit well in the band.
On a musical level Hostilia seems to just throw in everything they liked from (late) 80’s Thrash Metal. The basics are clearly stolen from the first three Metallica albums, but there’s a good bit of Evildead, Lääz Rockit, Testament, Anthrax, Vio-Lence and especially Xentrix to be found in the Hostilia-mix. As a whole, ‘Face The Fire’ is a rather slick sounding Thrash Metal affair, brimming with choppy and staccato riffs and flaming leads. Tim Angelini’s shouting vocals are best described as a rougher James Hetfield with a massive roar every now and then and fit well in the on occasion Crossover-like compositions. These mild Hardcore parts keeps the music away from sounding all too melodic or too much of a Metallica sound-alike, yet it never goes into the real D.R.I., Cryptic Slaughter or Municipal Waste-like territories.
I can well imagine that the new generations of Thrash Metal fans will eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It has the energy and the banging riffs that many of the youngster of the 80’s also displayed, at least it feels more honest than the majority of the Thrash Metal bands from the late 10’s. And for the old farts: this is quite a fun listen for us as well.
