OBLOMOV — Mighty Cosmic Dances (review)

OBLOMOV — Mighty Cosmic Dances album cover Album · 2005 · Melodic Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Nightfly
Released in 2005, Mighty Cosmic Dances is the debut album from Czech black metal band Oblomov. Even before listening to the album a glance at the cover suggests an album with sci-fi themes and so it is though from a musical point of view only the synth driven Intro and Outro sound particularly spacey.

At thirty nine minutes it’s a fairly short album by today’s standards but that’s no bad thing in itself as many albums far outstay their welcome with large quantities of filler. The album kicks in properly with Mentality Fatigue and it’s pretty standard black metal fayre of the more melodic variety, well enough played though falling short of anything to set it apart from numerous other releases. However, as the album progresses it becomes apparent that Oblomov aren’t going to be restricted to traditional metal instrumentation and introduce sax for the first, but not last time on Lost Between Emotions as well as what sounds like a particularly cheap organ and a whistle/recorder. I’m all for experimentation and hats off to bands that don’t allow themselves to be constrained by genre boundaries but the sax in particular sounds somewhat incongruous to the overall sound. The keyboards fair better however and used for effect rather than playing a large part in the songs.

By the time I’m nearing the end I’m left with the impression of a very competent black metal band who have released a good album though lacking a few killer tracks to set it apart from the general masses of other bands following a similar path. However, Nostalgic Idealization leaves a longer lasting impressing with stronger hooks and riffs. Sadly it’s too little too late and final track Dreamworks (excluding Outro) returns to more middling ground.

For a debut album Mighty Cosmic Dances is not bad at all but I was left feeling the band will need to up their game if they wished to join the premiership league of black metal. Although I’ve not heard their second album, Communitas (Deconstructing the Order) in full it appears to show some growth with more experimentation so Oblomov are definitely worth keeping an eye on if they ever get round to releasing a third album.
Share this review

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

The Goblin Sessions Heavy Metal
THEM
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tormenta De Arena Metalcore
VORAGO
Buy this album from MMA partners
Infinite Metalcore
FUTURE GHOST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Heretic Melodic Death Metal
SUNCINDER
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Harrowed TwentyTenVideo
HARROWED
Bosh66· 3 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us