MASTER BOOT RECORD Defines ‘Computer Metal’ on New Album
Photo Credit: Tainted FIRE
Italian electronic-metal project MASTER BOOT RECORD will release Computer Metal Oct. 30 through Metal Blade Records, turning the project’s long-running collision of computers and heavy music into the organizing principle for an entire album.
The 10-track follow-up to 2024’s Hardwarez was written through MIDI in Cubase, with the computer serving as the primary instrument and real guitar layered alongside synthesizers.
For mastermind Vittorio D’Amore, however, Computer Metal isn't simply another technology-themed record.
“Hardwarez was about the hardware; Computer Metal is more connected to what computers represent in our lives and the memory we have of them,” D’Amore said. “This album is a sort of codex of the genre, since each song expresses a different style of metal, while still being done with the computer.”
That structure sends MASTER BOOT RECORD across a wide section of the metal spectrum. Hardcore, progressive metal, thrash, melodic metal, death metal, symphonic metal and industrial metal are among the styles incorporated across the record, with individual songs emphasizing different parts of D’Amore's musical vocabulary.
The computer references extend beyond the music. Titles including “COMMAND PROMPT,” “PLUG AND PLAY,” “SOCKET 7,” “BOOT SECTOR,” “TURBO BUTTON,” “VOODOO2” and “CRT” draw from technology that became part of everyday vocabulary for generations of computer users.
“These are terms that entered everyday language, and that is the point: this culture is not a niche, it was a generation’s shared experience,” D’Amore said. “Even someone who never opened a computer case knows what it means when a screen asks you to press Ctrl+Alt+Del.”
Despite the machine-centered concept, D’Amore emphasizes that the album itself was composed by a person. Every note was written using a keyboard and mouse to control the computer, while the accompanying artwork was created character by character rather than generated.
The record opens with first single “DOT MATRIX” and closes, appropriately, with “CTRL + ALT + DEL.”
Computer Metal Track List
- “DOT MATRIX”
- “COMMAND PROMPT”
- “PLUG AND PLAY”
- “FIRMWARE”
- “SOCKET 7”
- “BOOT SECTOR”
- “TURBO BUTTON”
- “VOODOO2”
- “CRT”
- “CTRL + ALT + DEL”
MASTER BOOT RECORD is entirely the work of Vittorio D’Amore.
Computer Metal arrives Oct. 30 digitally and on CD and vinyl through Metal Blade Records.