Hostilia are not the band that will change your mind about thrash. They are the band that will remind you why you loved it. «The Curse of Khamun» comes out on 23 October on Hammerheart Records, a year after «Face the Fire», and it is a record that does not try to impress with production tricks. It tries to sound like five people in a room with the amps turned all the way up.
“`Country: Sweden
Style: Thrash Metal
For fans of: Exodus, Testament, Overkill, Defiance
The result is full, warm and a little dirty in the right way. The guitars have body, the drums sound natural, and Samuel Alnesten Alvarez sings with that hoarse, aggressive tone that suits what they play. Nothing here gives away digital convenience.
The band’s story is short and clean. Brothers William and Albert Lindeblad formed it in Gothenburg in 2021, with William on guitar and Albert on drums. The first EP, «Atomic Thunder» in 2023, showed a band that knew what it wanted. The 2025 debut «Face the Fire» confirmed it, and tours with The Haunted and Dismember gave their music the stage pressure it was missing. The appearance at Sweden Rock Festival was the moment more people started paying attention.
Nine tracks, eight proper songs and an intro. «The Awakening» opens the door and «Lost in the Void» pulls you in straight away: fast, with a clear structure and a chorus that sticks. The title track «The Curse of Khamun» is one of the record’s smartest moments, with twin leads and a rhythm that keeps you on edge. «No Mercy for the Weak», the main single, is the most direct track — the one you would put first on a radio show to introduce the band.
In the middle the album takes a breath with «Sleeping Water», the ballad you don’t expect from a thrash album but which doesn’t break the flow, and with the instrumental «Enchanter of the Sea», which shows that Hostilia can hold your attention without words. «Escape from Hell» turns the mood back toward the stage, and «Lightning Warfare» closes the record at speed — though the finale could have been a little more imposing, with one more idea rather than two more riffs.
For the first time the band recorded and produced on its own, with Per Stålberg mixing at Welfare Sounds. You can hear it: the guitars are not polished out of existence, the vocals are not stacked in ten layers, and the dynamic differences between the tracks are real. The cover is hand-painted by Karl-Oskar Hansson, tattoo artist and drummer of The Dahmers, and it fits the themes perfectly: war, 80s Italian horror, the fear of the unknown and the curse of Tutankhamun.
Our take
«The Curse of Khamun» does not innovate. It doesn’t even try. What it does is play old school thrash with the seriousness of people who have studied the records they loved — from the Bay Area storm years to the genre’s more melodic period — and who don’t simply copy the shell. There is a difference between «it sounds like 1988» and «it was written with 1988 in mind». Hostilia belong to the second category.
If you are looking for thrash that smells like Anthrax – Spreading the Disease without feeling like a museum copy, this is your album. If, on the other hand, you are tired of bands chasing speed for speed’s sake, here you will find something more measured: choruses, melodies, and a band from Gothenburg that knows exactly what it wants to do. «The Curse of Khamun» is out on 23 October on CD, vinyl and digital — alongside the month’s other releases.
See also
See also: Thrash Mob – Hate, Rage And A Whole Lotta Killin’ | Entombed – Left Hand Path. For the wider picture, The old school thrash albums that laid the foundations of the genre.
