In his 2011 book Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past, Simon Reynolds argues that pop culture is stuck in a loop, constantly recycling and cannibalizing its own history. Master Boot Record seem almost tailor-made for that analysis: their whole sound and aesthetic is old technology, specifically related to computers, programming, and code. Within MBR’s metal aesthetic, dead and outdated computer paraphernalia (floppy disks, motherboards, code sequences, videogame graphics) are combined in a black and white aesthetic with runes and walknuts (which the good people at Is It Fash have assured us do not hide any secret fascist leanings), to produce a haunting ghost-in-the-machine effect. The music itself blends metal riffs, synth beats, and baroque arpeggios that would make Bach himself blush, for being a bit too Satanic.
On this warm Montreal evening, people are out and about downtown showing a bit of flesh: can we be optimistic and call it the first day of summer? We are downstairs in the basement of metal institution the Piranha Bar, and the doorman (who is wearing a Morbid Angel t-shirt) notes my Dragon Ball Z t-shirt and surmises I am in the right place: there is another metal show upstairs, but this one is the metal show with a bit of irony. The stage is laden with old computers and screens, and support one-man band arottenbit bursts onstage dressed in a mask, orange construction pants, and a -(16)- t-shirt, wielding an actual trash can, from which he fishes an electronic device, which will turn out to be his trademark modded “1989 Nintendo Game Boy salvaged from the trash.”
So begins an onslaught of high-energy electro beats interspersed with noisy skronk. “I’m going to play you some crazy tunes tonight,” informs us enthusiastically Alessandro “Otto” Galli aka arottenbit, who hails from Italy like the headliners, and whose music is described online as “Atari Teenage Riot playing Melvins…a singular force at the intersection of extreme music and chiptune chaos,” a pretty apt description, the chiptune part providing the treble high-end cutesy bits counterbalancing the danceable industrial techno beats and grooves. Galli himself puts a ton of energy into his performance, dancing along, pumping up the audience and getting them to put their fists in the air, throwing himself into the crowd and getting a good moshpit going, and saying stuff like “This is the time where you show me your worst dance moves,” and then demonstrating what he means. The Dillinger Escape Plan (with Mike Patton) once proclaimed that “irony is a dead scene,” but it’s not true: irony is alive and well, and this type of music thrives of straddling that line between satisfying and annoying, always pushing into the latter as far as it can without alienating the listener. Three times Galli announces this is his “last song,” but it’s all good, and the audience crowdsurfing the trash can while Galli tells them to be careful of the venue lights is a high note rounding out his set.
A blue light signals the arrival of Master Boot Record, who in their live incarnation are a trio, with main man Vittorio D’Amore in a black hoodie joined by lead guitarist Edoardo Taddei, with his white jacket and 80s poodle hair, and Giulio Galati on drums. From the beginning, it’s clear that MBR live will deviate from their polished recorded output, and while successfully reproducing the crystal-clear baroque lead guitar noodling that defines their sound on record, this is very much a metal show, with the live drums and groovy riffs providing that organic and gritty fix. Making instrumental metal music exciting is no easy feat, but veering between those two poles, the magical baroque atmospherics delving into a nostalgic and mythical mid-80s to mid-90s, with the colourful videogame-laden backdrops as visual accompaniment, and a muscular strain of slightly proggy thrash metal, MBR are clearly onto a winning formula, which goes down a storm tonight in this sold-out basement of the Piranha Bar. “Minchia!” someone shouts out (an Italian swearword), and Taddei smiles. “Anybody knows a videogame that is called Doom?” asks D’Amore before they launch into their cover of the theme tune.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and all this takes me back to the Street Hawk theme tune, as well as spending hours on the Amiga, Megadrive, and Super Famicom: and while there is certainly something pre-ordained and self-contained about MBR’s music (and, to be fair, the sameness of it does begin to wear a bit thin before the set is over), the niche they have identified and cornered has undeniable appeal, and fully transports you into a nostalgic and haunting world of an eternal 1980s. An age of innocence, for those of us who grew up during that era. A song from D’Amore’s baroque church organ-laden Keygen Church side-project (“Tenebre Rosso Sangue”) makes me think that, between MBR’s atmospheric and their metal side, I prefer the former, it’s more distinctive. While there’s plenty of music combining the ambience of electronic music and synthwave with the power and raw energy of metal these days, the perfect synthesis of those two realms remains an enigma yet to be solved, and always slightly out of reach, and maybe that’s the beauty of it. MBR succeed as well as any, and you are fully invited to delve into their mesmerizing, gloomy yet also uplifting realms.
At the end of the set, Vittorio throws some freebie disks into the crowd, and announces “We’re going to be at the merch table in 10-15 mins, if you want to chat about computers” (of course). His parting shot, however, is a reminder that “This is computer metal, fuck synthwave!”
Review – Daniel Lukes
Photos – Claudia Guillemette
