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Draft:Master Boot Record

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  • Comment: Resubmitting after a substantial rework of a draft that had been abandoned since March 2024 and G13-deleted. The earlier decline cited notability and a lack of inline citations; both have been worked on directly.
    Sourcing has gone from 7 unique sources to 22. Around a dozen are independent of the subject and give significant coverage, the main ones being three separate Bandcamp Daily features (2017, 2020 and 2022), Invisible Oranges, Metal Hammer Italia (an interview and a live report), PopMatters, Metal Injection, Angry Metal Guy, Everything Is Noise, ReGen Magazine and PC Gamer. Every paragraph is cited and there are no outstanding citation-needed tags.
    On WP:NBAND criterion 2: three albums have entered the UK Official Album Downloads Chart per the Official Charts Company, Hardwarez peaking at 32. Since that is a component chart under WP:CHARTMATH rather than the main Official Albums Chart, I have kept it to a single factual sentence and have not built the notability case on it.
    Several errors in the earlier version are fixed: the infobox birth name was inverted (Vittorio D'Amore is the birth name, Victor Love the stage name); the Ultrakill soundtrack credit belongs to the Keygen Church project, not to Master Boot Record, and is now sourced to the official release; the discography ended in 2022 and now runs to 2026; and the article previously described a solo artist with no live presence, when the project has been performing live as a three-piece since 2022. Structure follows the pattern used by comparable one-person projects such as Carpenter Brut, The Algorithm and Blanck Mass. PriitPriit (talk) 10:22, 6 September 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment: I've removed the disambiguator because the alternative capitalization redirect in the mainspace can be claimed, if this article is able to demonstrate notability. microbiologyMarcus [petri dish·growths] 17:28, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Master Boot Record
Also known asVictor Love
Born
Vittorio D'Amore
OriginRome, Italy[1][2]
Genres
Instruments
Years active2016–present
LabelMetal Blade
Member ofDope Stars Inc.
Websitembrserver.com

Master Boot Record (stylised MASTER BOOT RECORD, and abbreviated MBR) is the synth metal project of the Italian musician Vittorio D'Amore, who performs under the name Victor Love.[1][3] Based in Rome, the project combines chiptune and demoscene music with thrash and death metal and classical forms, and its studio recordings are produced almost entirely in software, with synthesised guitars and programmed drums.[4][5] Love characterises the project with the slogan "100% Synthesized, 100% Dehumanized".[2][1]

Master Boot Record has released fourteen studio albums since 2016, the first four of them within a single month of that year.[1] Since 2020 the project has recorded for Metal Blade Records.[6] Love also records Baroque- and Romantic-influenced synth metal as Keygen Church.[7]

Although the studio albums are written and performed by Love alone, Master Boot Record tours as a three-piece band, with Love joined by guitarist Edoardo Taddei and drummer Giulio Galati.[3][8] The live show plays alongside the synthesised recordings and incorporates Commodore 64 and Amiga 500 hardware modified for stage use.[3][9]

History

[edit]

Love grew up among the machines in his father's computer shop, which was active through the 1990s, and has worked in IT ever since as a system operator, the role in which he casts the project's persona.[5] Before Master Boot Record he was already fronting the Rome industrial rock band Dope Stars Inc., which he has led since 2003.[10]

Master Boot Record began in 2016 and initially operated anonymously; in a 2017 interview Love said he was "not hiding my identity", but leaving it "as a quest for those who are really interested to find out".[1] He produced and released four albums between 1 and 22 September 2016 after settling on a fixed set of sounds, an approach he compared to pixel art: "low resolution; high imagination".[1]

Love is a member of Theta Division, the three-person studio behind the 2020 point-and-click adventure game VirtuaVerse, for which he wrote the story and the music; its other members are the programmer Alessio Cosenza and the pixel artist Valenberg.[10][11] The soundtrack was issued separately as VirtuaVerse.OST.[12]

The project signed to Metal Blade Records, which released Floppy Disk Overdrive (2020), Personal Computer (2022) and Hardwarez (2024).[6] Each of the three entered the UK Official Album Downloads Chart,[13] Hardwarez reaching number 32 in October 2024.[14]

By 2022 Master Boot Record was performing live as a band, with Love on baritone guitar and computers, Edoardo Taddei on lead guitar and Giulio Galati on drums.[5][3][8] The trio played a ten-date North American tour in the spring of 2024,[8] and supported Mayhem at the Live Club in Trezzo sull'Adda that December.[15] A first live album, Realtime Execution, was self-released in April 2026 and compiles recordings drawn from shows across Europe and North America.[9]

In September 2026, Master Boot Record announced Computer Metal, scheduled for release on 30 October, and released its lead single, "Dot Matrix".[16]

Musical style

[edit]

Master Boot Record's music draws on early computer systems and on the cracktros of the warez and demoscene subcultures, together with the death and thrash metal Love listened to as a teenager, including Metallica and Megadeth.[6][5] Album and track titles refer to 1990s computing, among them C:\>FIXMBR, Interrupt Request and Direct Memory Access.

Until Hardwarez (2024) the recordings contained no played instruments, being sequenced via MIDI in Cubase with synthesised guitar and bass and programmed drums;[5][1][3] That album was the first to add overdubbed electric guitar alongside them.[6][17] Metal Injection's review of Personal Computer credited its drums with giving the album its groove and marking it as metal regardless of context;[18] Bandcamp Daily made it an Album of the Day.[19] Angry Metal Guy called Hardwarez some of the project's heaviest material to date and Everything Is Noise its best record so far,[20][21] and PopMatters, including it among the best metal albums of October 2024, described a record that "doesn't rely on any tricks but instead rides along pumping electronic rhythms and majestic riffs".[17] ReGen Magazine wrote that a "totally computer-generated and programmed act" reaching Metal Blade "must be able to deliver, and with Hardwarez, MBR absolutely does that".[22]

Love has resisted the synthwave and darksynth labels frequently applied to the project, and adopted the term "Computer Metal" after listeners applied it to the 2024 single "CPU".[3] Writing for Invisible Oranges, Langdon Hickman nonetheless called VirtuaVerse and its score "the current apex of synthwave as a genre".[12]

Other projects

[edit]

Keygen Church is a second project of Love's, combining Baroque- and Romantic-inspired composition with synth metal and centred on what Love describes as "a religious view of old technology and the old-school underground computer scene", a "church that preserves and protects the ancient codes" and a "cult of the old code".[7] Its track "Tenebre Rosso Sangue" was written for the first-person shooter Ultrakill and appears on the game's official soundtrack, credited to Keygen Church.[23]

Members

[edit]
  • Victor Love (Vittorio D'Amore) – synthesisers, programming, guitar, computers (2016–present)

Live members

  • Edoardo Taddei – lead guitar[8][9]
  • Giulio Galati – drums[8][9]

Discography

[edit]

Studio albums

[edit]
  • C:\>FIXMBR (2016)[2]
  • C:\>EDIT CONFIG.SYS (2016)
  • C:\>EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT (2016)
  • C:\>CHKDSK /F (2016)
  • C:\>COPY *.* A: /V (2017)
  • 486DX (2017)
  • Interrupt Request (2017)
  • Direct Memory Access (2018)
  • Virus.DOS (2018)
  • Internet Protocol (2019)
  • Floppy Disk Overdrive (2020)
  • C:\>DEFRAG (2020)
  • Personal Computer (2022)
  • Hardwarez (2024)

Live albums

[edit]
  • Realtime Execution (2026)[9]

Soundtracks

[edit]
  • VirtuaVerse.OST (2020)[12]

As Keygen Church

[edit]
  • ░ ▒ ▓ █ (2018)[24]
  • █ ▓ (2019)
  • ░█░█░░█░█░█░ (2021)
  • Tenebre Rosso Sangue (2022)
  • Nel Nome Del Codice (2024)
  • Oscuro Domine (2026)[24]

References

[edit]
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Jarman, Casey (10 March 2017). "Master Boot Record Forges Metal and Chiptune Together". Bandcamp Daily. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 "MASTER BOOT RECORD". Bandcamp. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ventriglia, Alex (25 March 2025). "Master Boot Record – Spread the Code!". Metal Hammer Italia (in Italian). Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  4. ↑ Wickens, Katie (3 August 2023). "Stop what you're doing and revel in the heavy chiptune virtuosity that is Master Boot Record". PC Gamer. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Miklos, Robert (3 October 2022). "WFA: MASTER BOOT RECORD". Everything Is Noise. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "MASTER BOOT RECORD". Metal Blade Records. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  7. 1 2 "Keygen Church". Metal Blade Records. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "Master Boot Record Announces 2024 Spring Tour Dates". Lollipop Magazine. April 2024. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "REALTIME EXECUTION". Bandcamp. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  10. 1 2 Parks, Andrew (16 June 2020). ""VirtuaVerse" is the Video Game Master Boot Record Was Born to Make". Bandcamp Daily. Retrieved 6 September 2026.
  11. ↑ Sackenheim, Shawn (13 December 2017). "Avant-garde, Metal, Chiptune: Master Boot Record and VirtuaVerse". Original Sound Version. Retrieved 6 September 2026.
  12. 1 2 3 Hickman, Langdon (22 June 2020). "Master Boot Record's Dark Synthwave Injects Cyberpunk Into New Adventure Game "VirtuaVerse"". Invisible Oranges. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  13. ↑ "MASTER BOOT RECORD | full Official Chart history". Official Charts Company. Archived from the original on 4 December 2024. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  14. ↑ "HARDWAREZ | MASTER BOOT RECORD | full Official Chart history". Official Charts Company. Archived from the original on 4 December 2024. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  15. ↑ Guglielmi, Nick (23 December 2024). "Mayhem + Master Boot Record @ Live Club, Trezzo Sull'Adda (MI), 11 dicembre 2024". Metal Hammer Italia (in Italian). Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  16. ↑ Baldin, Benedetta (10 September 2026). "Master Boot Record to release "Computer Metal" full-length". Chaoszine. Retrieved 11 September 2026.
  17. 1 2 Stasis, Spyros; Poscic, Antonio (4 November 2024). "MetalMatters: The Best Metal Albums of October 2024". PopMatters. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  18. ↑ "Album Review: MASTER BOOT RECORD Personal Computer". Metal Injection. 16 May 2022. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  19. ↑ Parks, Andrew (23 May 2022). "Master Boot Record, "Personal Computer"". Bandcamp Daily. Retrieved 6 September 2026.
  20. ↑ Hugebeard, Mystikus (12 October 2024). "Master Boot Record – Hardwarez Review". Angry Metal Guy. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  21. ↑ Miklos, Robert (14 November 2024). "MASTER BOOT RECORD – "Hardwarez"". Everything Is Noise. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  22. ↑ Liner, Lucia Z. "ReView: Master Boot Record – Hardwarez". ReGen Magazine. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  23. ↑ "Tenebre Rosso Sangue, by KEYGEN CHURCH". Bandcamp. Heaven Pierce Her. 18 March 2023. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
  24. 1 2 "KEYGEN CHURCH". Bandcamp. Retrieved 4 September 2026.
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