Keygen Church – Nel Nome Del Codice
Reviewed By: Denis Bridger
Review Score: 9.5
Keygen Church is the gothic metal love child of Vittorio D’amore (Victor Love), who hails from Italy and whose roots are not strictly musical, but also from a different but interesting source point than usual. Interestingly, he has created a unique piece of work, which, by any other standards, is worth checking out. Ater all, it is rather splendid. Gotta be honest, when I read the bio of Keygen Church, I had to read it more than a couple of times, just to get my head around what kind of artist I was dealing with. I am not a tech head but I shall duly give it a go and try to translate some of what I read.
Victor Love, who is also the 8-bit phenom Master Boot Record (MBR) – which seems to be the precursor to Keygen Church – writes and composes his music whilst streaming live on the internet (as it happens from undisclosed events around his Rome sound laboratory). This being said, the polishing and finishing touches are done back in the studio, as that is the “boring” part, says Victor. Most musicians will agree that the mastering and getting the music to a place you like, is very time consuming.
Mr. Love, probably like many of the early dance music producers, found his love of music through technology, working with his father and then as a Systems Administrator at a university. After this, Vittorio discovered the pirated software Cracktos, and music was an integral part of the Key Generator culture. I guess if you know about the demo scene, then you probably already know his name.
A key factor in Vittorio’s life has been The Demo Scene or The Scene as it’s also referred to. A friend tried to explain the demon scene some years ago, as he was involved in the Polish scene. As a late bloomer to the tech world, it was hard for me to understand, but from what I could make it was about coding or, for the layman, writing code for computers to be able to do such things as make pictures or logos. This became a sort of cult amongst the early computer enthusiasts. The logo you see above is ASCII art and is a 1 bit pixel graphic language created by 1st generation Demosceners‘ Bulletin board system (BBS) and was created by German based illustrator Valenberg (VirtuaVersa).
Now to the music…
If you have ever been in a cathedral and heard music being played on the pipe organ, especially with a choir, then you will know the sound and immense power that can be transmitted by the gothic architecture and the religious atmosphere that is present in a cathedral. I was fortunate to hear both David Bowie and Motörhead played on pipe organs in cathedrals (in memory of their respective passings) and it was something to behold. Hearing contemporary music in such a setting really makes you stop, listen and take heed. Anyway, I digress….
The first track ‘Se Hai Timor Del Vero‘ opens with beautiful chorals. The pipe organ comes in, creating a devilish, sinister vibe. The digital heavy metal riffs enter with some very excellent piano playing by Love. The overall feel is religious, slightly threatening, and reminiscent of the music you might have heard in a Bela Lugosi film. The sound is massive enough to fill a cathedral, virtually, digitally and, I imagine, in reality. The sound that is created by Victor is incredible and as heavy as music can be without an instrument in sight.
What we need to remember is that all the music by Keygen Church is 100% digital and is made in Cubase (DAW) and a selection of high end VSTs. On ‘La Chiave Del Mio Amor’ Love makes good use of the VST Hauptwerk (for organ) and the EastWest Hollywood Choirs for the choir (obviously). Love explains that…
“The choir part [of the songwriting process] has been the most challenging, inparticular, some of the syllables sound weird in Italian, the language of chorals. The software is, of course, developed by English-speaking people.“
It must be hard to simulate such an authentic and epic sound with only VSTs, recreating the openness and space that would naturally be in a cathedral, and very time consuming. I would like to have a play with the choir VST, as its sound is very convincing as are the drums (Superior Drummer 3 VST). It’s not easy to find digital drums that sound realistic, but this VST sounds really impressive. The guitars aren’t really guitar sounding, but give that guitar feel and deep bass to add a really great depth. Additionally, the organ has a nice John Lord (Deep Purple) feel. Maybe we need more organ in music? This track is really moving, heavy, and is quite metal in parts. All in all, really impressive programming, design and composition. Lord is a master of his art and will leave you short of breathe by the end.
‘Sulla Via Della Gloria’ opens with a VST Steinway Grand piano and has some really heavy, dirty, non-guitar leads and more of that impressive choir and heavy drums. The whole experience of this record is other-worldly. The sounds are so big, open, and pretty realistic. You can’t help but be impressed by what you hear.
The title track ‘Nel Nom Del Codice’ (In The Name Of The Code) hails back to the cult-like, sub-cultural world of the Demoscene and is another beautiful piece of music. Victor’s piano playing is second to none. The intonation of Love’s playing is very emotional, yet we can’t forget that some really heavy metal is always lurking around the corner to remind that you are not listening to Chopin or some other ancient rock star of the day.
For this scribe, the standout track is ‘Il Paradiso Dell’Anima’ where Love takes it down a notch with the tempo and a beautifully sad, lost love piano. Love’s excellent piano playing is captivating throughout the record. Surprisingly, there is a disco, four to the floor beat on this track (imagine ABBA doing metal) with crazy piano playing, hammering baselines and drums (again, Superior Drummer 3 VST). It is short-lived, going into a full techno metal opus maximus that feels like it was written 300 years ago in a castle somewhere in Prussia. The awesome baroque piano is just incredible with more going on than I can even describe. Mr. Love must have a special brain to come up with these concepts. It blows me away.
‘La Voce Del Destino’ comes back with the big cathedral chorals, again with the utmost atmosphere, giving that air of doom and finalization of something important but daunting, but with a little light shining off in the distance. Love gives his (Massive VST) a blowout for guitar and bass. It’s slow, very heavy, very beautiful and takes one back to a different time and place. I can only suggest listening as there are not enough adjectives in my brain to describe the vastness of sound.
‘Che Sia Vita O Morte’ is sad, morose, thoughtful, and emotional. This choir VST is mind-blowing, and in the hands of such a person as Love, has been used to take things up a level. Halfway through the track, madness presents itself in blackness! Organs that terrify and piano playing that would make Mozart cringe with a lack of ability.
And, finally, ‘Sempre Nel Mio Pensiero‘ adds the finishing touch to an outstanding work. A more traditional death metal kinda rhythm with heavy guitars and bass. If you are a young fan of metal and you take this and play it to your mum, she is gonna have some questions. It’s not for the feint-hearted. An explosive ending to a very enjoyable and new musical experience.
Keygen Church has two previous album, which are ░ ▒ ▓ ▊ and ░ ▋░▋░░▋ ░▋░ (both released in 2022), which are classified as alt code/text art-titled albums (hopefully I have written the album titles correctly).
Vittorio d’amore describes his music as synth metal. From my perspective, it is more of a classical record with over and undertones of black/death metal. It has the feel of a futuristic classical composition, which makes me wonder if people might take an interest in classical music after hearing this, as lots of classical music is very dark, evil, and scary sounding. We could ponder that if Mozart (et al) were composing today, would they be making music like Keygen Church? If you have seen Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure, then, probably, yes… look what Mozart did in that music shop!
In conclusion, this album will not be for everyone. There will be those who will question if this is even metal, as is always the case when an artist does something different. Love has his core followers from the 8-bit demoscene side and is sure to gain a lot more followers of the Keygen cult now that he is moving to a wider audience with Metal Blade Records.
In the modern age, we need to break down the ancient barriers of being hesistant to mix genres and styles. As the saying goes, “there are no straight lines in nature”, and such is the case with music. I can already hear, and visualize, how this music would sound with a live band in a cathedral. In fact, Love has said that he wants the first show to be in a church, and he already has some ideas about how to make that happen. It would surely blow anyone away and be an eternal memory.
So, put on some ear cans, turn it up to 11 and enjoy this piece of innovative art and truly unique musical journey through the ages of music… really FECKIN’ loud!
Nel Nome Del Codice releases on March 22nd via Metal Blade Records.