Master Boot RecordComputer Metal

Dot Matrix, Command Prompt, Plug and Play, Socket 7, Turbo Button, Voodoo2, CRT. That's not some computer shop's price list from 1997, it's the tracklist of Master Boot Record's new album. Out October 30th on Metal Blade: ten tracks, forty-two minutes, and nobody opens their mouth. The album is instrumental from start to finish. Waiting for vocals? Try next door.

The project belongs to Italian Vittorio D'Amore, a.k.a. Victor Love. The guy used to front Dope Stars Inc., and on the side he's got a separate thing going called Keygen Church. In the lineup: Edoardo Taddei on lead guitar, Giulio Galati on drums. 2024's Hardwarez was apparently about the hardware. According to D'Amore, Computer Metal is about what the computer means in people's lives and in their memories. Metal Blade calls this "sensory memory" (whatever that means?). The real idea is more down to earth: every song headbutts a different metal genre. Hardcore, progressive, thrash, melodic, death, symphonic, industrial… D'Amore calls it metal's "codex". The tracks were written in Cubase with MIDI, the main instrument is the computer, and real guitar was laid on top of the synths.

The first reviews are split down the middle. Dead Rhetoric gave it 8.5 out of 10, KNAC full marks. Both call it the project's strongest album and praise how the ten tracks hop from genre to genre and still sound like Master Boot Record. Angry Metal Guy, though, stopped at 2.5 out of 5. Liked the riffs and the melodies, but wrote that the guitar and synths bleed into each other and turn to mud. Found "Firmware", "Socket 7" and "Voodoo2" weak, and said "Boot Sector" has good guitar but runs too long. Here's the funny part: Dead Rhetoric singles out "Voodoo2" for its death metal heft, and KNAC counts "Boot Sector" among the best. So one guy crowns a track and the other kicks it to the curb. The one track all three critics praise is "Command Prompt", and two of them name the opener "Dot Matrix". "CRT" and the closer "Ctrl + Alt + Del" got a separate mention only from that grumpy critic (savour the irony).

If a thrash riff and a symphonic layer fall into the same soup, the "codex" talk stays on paper.

My score is 72, and here's why. The idea is solid and there's no flab in forty-two minutes. Sending every track off to a different genre is a straight cure for the instrumental album's biggest problem, the monotony that sets in halfway through. Credit where it's due to the concept. But even if only one critic says the synths and guitar blur together, that gripe goes straight to the heart of the concept: if the sounds run together, switching genres loses its point too. If a thrash riff and a symphonic layer fall into the same soup, the "codex" talk stays on paper. Who did the production, the mix and the mastering? Not a single line on Bandcamp. We can't tell what came from whom. And critics landing on opposite sides of the same tracks tells me the album is uneven. A record full of songs that are the best to some and the weakest to others doesn't deserve 80. And since it's built on an idea that adds up and doesn't repeat itself, it doesn't drop to 60 either.

Oh, while I'm at it: you can get the digital on Bandcamp from 1 dollar, pay what you want. The CD is 12 dollars, the European vinyl pressing between 21.90 and 26.90 euros. There's also a colour called "Terminal Green Smoke", monitor green. Apparently a Commodore 64 and an Amiga 500 come up on stage at the shows. They're playing SO36 in Berlin on December 4th, so if you're passing through, drop by. If you've got a thing for retro hardware, buy it. If you've got no patience for vocal-less metal, listen to "Command Prompt" first, then decide…