Right from the start of "Bloodwine Of Satan", the debut album from HOSTIUM, you notice a great amount of musical skill on display. HOSTIUM is made up of members from NORDWIND and seems to basically be the exact same band, minus one member. As such, they have already proven in the recent past, that they know what they're doing with their instruments of choice and know their way around a solid black metal outing. However it feels very much like there isn't all that much to this album.

The first track, a 6 minute hostile beast named "Through Realms Of Oblivion/Holy Spirit Of Satan", made me think that we could be on to something here. It's a great dark and angry example of what black metal is and should be. However even this song doesn't exactly do anything to further the genre, and makes no real effort to stand out. The rest of the album feels uninspired, and while we can definitely see the skill behind the musicians, we can also see a lack of creativity as we slog through the 7 tracks of this album. It's not bad, as they don't really do anything wrong as such, it's just kind of bland , especially by the end of it. If you were to listen to one track of the 7, any would be good by itself. It's middle of the road black metal and exactly the sort of thing you'd think of when you think of the genre, and that's the problem. There is nothing really special here as far as the song writing and variety goes. The final track ends the album well, however as it brings up the melody a bit and absolutely kills it with the drumming. The drumming is probably the highlight of the entire album in fact, with fantastic blast beats and fills that are often layered over the top of the guitar, in a strange but effective move.

Going by the level of skill, and the decent experience of these guys, I'd like to see where they go next, but they need to spice things up a bit if they want to stand out. As I said, it's not actually a bad album. It's just that it's not a particularly good one either.

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