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.
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