OBLOMOV — Mighty Cosmic Dances (review)

OBLOMOV — Mighty Cosmic Dances album cover

Album · 2005 · Melodic Black Metal

4/5 · 2016-09-23
DippoMagoo

MMA Reviewer's Challenge: September 2016

Outside of its symphonic form, black metal is not a genre I've explored very much at all since I got into metal, but I have found a few gems in the genre over the years. The latest of these is Mighty Cosmic Dances, the debut by Czech Republic's Oblomov. The band has since released one other album, that being Communitas (Deconstructing the Order) in 2009. Both of their albums are lesser known but quite highly regarded by people who have heard them, and so while I didn't really know what to expect from this debut, I figured it would probably be good. What I got was some expertly done melodic black metal fused with melodic death metal, and with the occasional use of some more unique and unexpected elements, making for quite the excellent experience.

At a first glance, Oblomov appear to be playing rather typical melodic black metal, with the first full song “Mentality Failure” starting off with mid tempo riffs and an overall dark tone suitable for the genre, but as the track goes on they speed it up and the riffs start to feel more like melodic death metal. The two styles alternate as the track goes on, and it's this ability to fluidly blend the two sounds together that already helps to make a strong first impression. Then you consider how great everything sounds, from the excellent guitar leads and nice solos, to the rather sporadic but effective use of atmospheric keys, which often have a spacey feel to them, and of course the vocals. 99.9% of all vocals on this album are growls, mostly lower range blackened growls, though there are some occasional higher growls as well, and all the vocals are very powerful and well performed. Harsh vocals tend to be hit or miss for me, but in this case they definitely hit all the time. I also enjoy the occasional use of unexpected instruments, as well as the occasional folk vibe, which is especially noticeable on the second half of “Lost Between Emotions”. One last important element is the production. One reason I don't often listen to a lot of black metal is because many bands in the genre have rather low quality production that makes it hard for me to enjoy the music, but such is not the case with Mighty Cosmic Dances. The guitars are crunchy and powerful, vocals are clear, drums sound great, and all the other instruments they incorporate also sound great and it's all clear and very powerful.

From what I understand, Mighty Cosmic Dances is a concept album dealing with Sci-Fi themes, though admittedly the lyrics can be tough to decipher, so I couldn’t really go into more detail. Everything flows well together, though, and the spacey, sound effect heavy intro and outro tracks sure give the feeling of a concept album. In fact, one cool detail I noticed: If you play the album on repeat, you can notice that the last note of the outro is the exact same as the first note of the intro, which is pretty neat, and the two tracks sound quite similar overall.

As far as songwriting goes, this is a very consistent album, and it's more about the overall feel than it is about individual tracks, though it does have some highlights. I already mentioned the intro and outro, which are both nicely done, as well as the excellent opening track, which speeds up and builds up intensity as it goes along. Perhaps the biggest highlight on the album is “Lost Between Emotions”, which starts out slower paced and atmospheric, before throwing in a few curve balls. The first of these comes in the form of a surprising saxophone solo less than a minute in. I've mentioned before that the saxophone is not one of my favorite instruments (it's my least favorite, in fact), but here it's used effectively and in a rather unique way, to help give the track a bit of a folk feel, and this feeling is only increased later in the track with various other folk sounds, to go along with the excellent guitar work and growls. It's quite the excellent and unique track overall.

There's another use of saxophone on the much faster paced, more death metal oriented track “Starsend”. Here its use is less unique, but still pretty cool. Another favorite track is “Nostalgic Idolization” another mostly fast paced track, with has a pretty cool section where the atmospheric keys take over and the vocals get more intense. The last full song on the album “Dreamworks” is great all around, but its highlight comes towards the middle, in the form of a much softer section with some kind of semi-clean vocals, which again sound quite unique and are pretty cool. Perhaps the only track with no huge moments is “Plague”, though it's still a very good track with some pretty awesome vocals, and it's also the track where I have the easiest time making out the lyrics, for some reason.

Overall, Mighty Cosmic Dances is an excellent debut, which fluidly blends together elements of melodic black metal and death metal, while also adding some rather surprising elements to help it stand out. As someone who rarely listens to black metal, I have to say it has left me quite impressed, so I have no doubt fans of the genre would be pleased with it as well. Oblomov made quite the strong first impression with this release and from what I've read Communitas (Deconstructing the Order) seems to be quite the unique and genre bending release as well, so I plan on checking that out in the near future.

more than 2 years ago
Permalink
Report #325551

Share this review

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer

Please login to post a shout

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Fantastic review, I completely agree. I generally don't like the saxophone either, but it just fits so well into the sound here surprisingly. That's cool about the intro and outro, I never noticed that,