Artist: Hyperdontia
Country: Denmark
Label: Desiccated Records
Formats: 7″ EP / Cassette EP
Year: 2025
Although I followed the Danish Death Metal scene rather religiously when things started booming there around the 2010’s, over the years it brought us an incredible lot of great bands, labels, festivals, visual artists etc., I had been struggling to keep up with everything for a while. Partly because of the waning interest in the sort of Death Metal that is usually coming from the Danish scene, but also because I felt that some of the material lacked a certain sense of urgency. Don’t get me wrong, most of it was (and is) still very good, but I just didn’t feel the urge to listen to it anymore. A bit of that was because lots of bands, and the Danish movement as a whole, kept repeating the same things over and over again…
One of the victims of my waning interest was Hyperdontia, that just started popping up when I started to look for my musical kicks elsewhere. I got the first 7” EP when it was released back in 2017, but I never felt the need of picking up anything else afterwards. Again, that 7” EP was good, but I didn’t “feel” it.
Now, anno 2025, a good few years later, the band has released a respectable discography; three full-length albums and a good amount of short players and splits. I have heard the occasional song and gave some of the albums a quick play, but honestly nothing really stuck with me. The rather ugly artwork for their last record, with some sort of zombie pirates in blue, didn’t help to whet my appetite either.
But, in all honesty, this latest EP (to be released on 7” vinyl and cassette tape), is pretty enjoyable. These two new songs, together clocking about 10 minutes, do not necessarily bring anything new to the table and largely continue the path chosen almost a decade ago. Yet, perhaps aided by the short nature of such an EP, this feels a little more snappy. Also, compared to the band’s earlier material, even up to the aforementioned last full-length album (the pirate one), it is clear that the band has added a lot more dynamics to the music, with a kind nod to Thrash-infused American styled Death Metal of the 90’s. So, for a change, there’s no rehashing of those downtrodden Incantation riffs. Although the earlier Hyperdontia tracks tended to sound like they were just another band from Denmark. With adding a good bit of Cannibal Corpse, Malevolent Creation and even Suffocation Hyperdontia sounds much fresher now than they did before. There’s some good melodic guitars, grinding riffs, a good and dry sounding grunting vocal delivery, audibly rumbling bass guitar rolling drums and – thank god – no ultra-down-tuned walls of guitars. A good but slightly rough-around-the-edges production seals the deal and makes this EP the most entertaining Hyperdontia recording I’ve heard so far.
