C​:​\​DEFRAG

Unstoppable metal machine music-maker that Master Boot Record is, knowing that in 2020 this one-man black industrial metal project released three full-length albums with two months to spare doesn't surprise me - if anything, I'd be astonished if MBR man Victor Love doesn't have another album in the can for release before we can all say goodbye to Year 2020. One thing though that should give us pause with recent effort "C:\DEFRAG" is that in contrast to the last MBR work I've heard, "Internal Protocol", which came out in 2019 - I haven't heard the other albums released in 2020 - Love has opted to include just two long tracks, as if he had been thinking of putting out this digital release as a 12" vinyl record with one track on each side. This format gives Love an opportunity to show that MBR is not restricted to writing and playing medium-long songs, which might imply something limiting about how he composes the music or about the instruments and the techniques he uses to do so. By writing and performing long tracks, MBR dips its digital toes (as it were) into possible soundtrack music, an arena that presents its own challenges in how to create original music varied enough to sustain listener attention all the way through.

Though the style and range music on "C:\DEFRAG" are no great advance on "Internal Protocol", with the keyboards having a generic sound and being more fiddly than flowing, it is highly energetic and its enthusiasm is boundless and infectious. Starting with track 1 "Cluster 777", the force of the music carries listeners along at near super-speed, and you find yourself eager to know just where it will all end up. As the music zips and weaves about on its voyages, powered along by thumping synth beats and grinding metal texture layers (sometimes chopped up for extra crunchy effect), a bewildering kaleidoscope of moods, not all of them terribly deep, pass listeners by. About halfway through "Cluster 777", the music seems to slow down a bit, allowing listeners to savour parts of the music and take note of the dark space in which it all plays out. Synthesiser starts to leave off a bit so the grinding texture driving the music comes through clearly before the whole thing erupts in a flourish of flowery synth lines and shrill orchestral synth wash.

"Cluster 1337" is a bit more restrained and shows more classical music stylings in its melodies and structuring, and in the way it balances its more exuberant and flamboyant moments with calmer music or just plain hell-4-leather blast-beat pummel. Melodic synthesiser and the more grinding metal elements come to an understanding and engage in a duet where one or the other may temporarily dominate the other but neither competes against the other. At last there is some attempt on MBR's part to create and shape a definite mood with the use of space within the music, by staying off the synths and relying on as much minimal instrumentation or sonic range as possible, and seeing how far he can go with that. The result is a greater range of mood and more variety in the music.

Given the concept behind MBR - metal-synth music composed by computer algorithms - listeners can expect the music will be flat and not have much sonic depth at all, and they won't be disappointed in this respect. The album has the nature of a deranged demon spirit as much mesmerised and spellbound by its own mischievous fiddling with the instruments, seeing how far it can go without exploding anything or burning any fuses, as it is focused on confounding the humans paying attention to it. While the album is not long, the dense musical arrangements and their speed and energy can be tiring for listeners - the need to focus intently is strong all while the album plays. While the level of musicianship is high and consistent, the album doesn't really bear repeated hearings: for all its energy, so much of the music has a gimmicky feel and the lavish melodies lose their freshness and start sounding decadent. Over-emphasis on the tricky fiddliness of the keyboard melodies -akin to too much guitar shredding - can actually turn out to be boring.