Hyperdontia – Nexus of Teeth

[schema type=”review” name=”Hyperdontia – Nexus of Teeth” description=”Label: Dark Descent Records” author=”Sarp Esin” pubdate=”2018-09-14″ ]

Hyperdontia is a condition whereby you grow more teeth than it is normal for adult humans.  It’s also the name of ablackened death metal band who just released their debut album, the aptly-titled Nexus of Teeth.

First thing’s first.  What’s waiting for you here is the unholy union of black and death metal.  Downtuned guitars cranking out chord progressions that slam and vibrate, serrated edges cutting deep.  Blast beats and other drum trickery to keep moving the abominable machine.  A solid atmosphere, borne mostly from production (this album’s saving grace and downfall in one) helped along by the low, black-tar vocals tying the whole thing together.  This is what you have.

Now, while there may not be such a thing as a blackened death or a deathened black (sic) riff, but Hyperdontia’s approach makes you believe that this fusion of genres is more transitional than built on mutual influence.  Throughout Nexus of Teeth, songs switch between black and death metal, rarely using both simultaneously but always managing the transitions seamlessly enough. More often than not, you have a song that starts out as a strain of black metal, only to switch gears to deathier pastures: Euphoric Evisceration would be a good example of this.  This tendency helps Hyperdontia create a sound that takes the best of both worlds.  The moody edge of black metal to the uncompromising heaviness of death, which is a very nice blend indeed.

Of course, neither genre is particularly effective without proper atmosphere.  Luckily, Hyperdontia delivers.  If nothing else, Nexus of Teeth has it down: the feeling you get from these songs is positively evil, but not in a “call your daemons” sort of way.  This is cavernous, suffocating and slimy.  The weight of it has an otherworldly aura – just look at the cover art and you’ll have a pretty good idea as to how it sounds.  On this front, Hyperdontia is to be congratulated, as they don’t depend solely on production values to make their atmosphere for them.

However.

The primary problem of Nexus of Teeth is that the songs tend to blur together.  The tremolo picked and death chords are on constant blast, rarely leaving any room to breathe.  The overabundance of riffs doesn’t help this.  Hyperdontia’s approach is tad too relentless: with barely any pauses in or in between songs and the almost complete lack of solos, the music becomes an amorphous mass of sound and fades into the background.  A little bit more thought spared into the songs and how to mark them with more than just their opening riffs would’ve gone a long way here.

Furthermore, Nexus of Teeth also suffers from bad production.  The drums are mangled.  They are way too far back: it’s like they were processed like a lo-fi black metal album while the guitars got the full Swedeath treatment. The snare is way too muffled, the kicks are barely audible at all, the cymbals are barely there and the toms are often felt than heard… you have to listen to the same basic, overly-processed (in the wrong way!) brushstroke snares every second the drums are on full, which is about 90% of the time.  Add the arrhythmic quality of blast beats, which you get a lot of here, and you have a mess.

All-in-all, Nexus of Teeth could’ve been so much better, but production issues, the vocals, the way the songs are structured to constantly delve into the same thing over and over again makes it a bit of a miss.  Still, I think blackened death, black and death enthusiasts will get a kick out of it.  For those who want a taste of what “blackened death” may be like, it may also work.  For others, I’d recommend looking into something else.

Line-Up:
Malik Çamlıca – bass
Tuna – drums
Mustafa Gürcallıoğlu – guitars
David Mikkelsen – vocals

Tracklist: 01. Purging Through Flesh 02. Of Spire and Thorn 03. Teeth and Nails 04. Aura of Flies 05. Majesty 06. Euphoric Evisceration 07. Escaping the Mortal Embodiment 08. Existence Denied

Hyperdontia on Facebook

Nexus of Teeth on Bandcamp