Victor Love announces Keygen Church

Victor Love (Dope Stars Inc.) has unveiled a new project based on his recent work as the synthesised heavy metal Master Boot Record.

Love states: “Some time ago I was experimenting a mix of synth metal with piano & pipe organs as lead instruments and a strong classical baroque influence.”

Keygen Church's debut album '░ ▒ ▓ █' is out now at keygenchurch.bandcamp.com

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Review: Victor Love – 'Technomancy'

VICTOR LOVE
'Technomancy'
METROPOLIS RECORDS

Victor Love, the founder principle writer and producer of Dope Stars Inc. has been very busy over the last year. Not content with releasing new music with his main project, he has also been scouring his archives for unreleased gems and moulding a cyberpunk vision for himself through his solo releases. The time has finally come now for his début solo album through Metropolis records.

Unifying the electronic elements of Dope Stars Inc. with a more minimalistic, dance friendly and conceptual direction than before. The end result is a blend of scathing guitars, catchy synth leads and elements of hip hop and glitch music with elements of industrial, ebm and techno. It can easily be compared to the likes of Skinny Puppy, ohGr, Katscan, KMFDM, 'Twitch' era Ministry with Victor Love's identifiable DIY style present throughout.

The album kicks off with a ultra heavy beat collaboration with KMFDM in the form 'Bitchcraft' which sees a fatter and unabashed anthemic sound that is a brilliant statement of intent. The likes of 'Cocaine' featuring Deflore, 'I Curse You' featuring Zu, 'The New System' featuring Aborym, and 'Blind Or Dead' featuring The Enigma TNG_, continue the bombastic and heavy sound that fans of Dope Stars Inc. will find the easiest to connect to, while the likes of 'Irrationality' featuring Spiritual Front, 'Surrenders' featuring Deathstars, 'Can't You Remember' featuring Hate Inc., and 'Black Dreams' featuring ORAX explore minimalistic and texturally interesting areas bringing the techno influences to the fore of the album.

The production is crisp and modern. The synth leads have a classic sound to them, and there are low-fi elements interspersed throughout, however there is nothing low-fi or old school about the production. This is a cyberpunk album that still manages to have a nice futuristic edge to it, as though this should be the soundtrack to the much delayed 'Neuromancer' film.

This is a great full-length début by a honed and hardened veteran of all things cyberpunk. The collaborations are great and the album presents quite a varied spread of sounds that will easily appeal to established fans and attract new ones. With a great EP and single released last year, this album is the final legitimisation of Victor Love as a solo artist and hopefully it will cement his reputation as the force that he is.  

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Review: Victor Love – 'Neo Tokyo Underground'

VICTOR LOVE
'Neo Tokyo Underground'
SELF-RELEASED

It's pretty safe to say at this juncture that Victor Love doesn't give a fuck about what he's expected to do or how he should do business. The man behind cyberpunks Dope Stars Inc. has been happily pirating his own band's music for years and giving the music business the middle finger while he is doing it. Now his new solo musical project sees him throw away the conventions of his band in favour of a more minimalistic approach. And with one EP already released in the form of 'The Network' it looks like it will pay off for him.

To capitalise on the release of his début solo EP, the Italian multi-instrumentalist and producer has unleashed another solo release in the form of the club single 'Neo Tokyo Underground'. The instrumental anthem blends techno, ebm, electro-industrial and distorted dance beats to create a compellingly grooving track that is pure dance-floor gold. In it's scathing synths, groovy bassline and simple beat it evokes the atmosphere of the kind of apocalyptic rave you'd expect the clubs in the world of Akira, Ghost In the Shell, and The Sprawl Trilogy to be spinning.

As with the EP before it, the track is more straightforward in it's approach than long-time fans of Love will be used to with his more guitar driven main project. However it is just a strong as anything else in his back catalogue and produced and mixed to the same high degree you'd expect from him.

This is another great offering from Victor Love and one that once again cries out for him to explore this direction on a full-length album sooner rather than later. Hopefully with another Dope Stars Inc. release scheduled for this year he will be able to balance the two projects and continue to deliver on both.  

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Review: Victor Love – 'The Network'

VICTOR LOVE
'The Network'
SELF-RELEASED

Victor Love is perhaps best known as the main man behind Italian cyberpunks Dope Stars Inc. who have been spreading their DIY influenced mix of industrial and punk for over a decade now. Love's newest release 'The Network' is interesting for two reasons; number one it is his first ever solo release, and number two, it sees a big change in sound.

'The Network' builds on the DIY ethic of his main project and has a very minimal sound characterised by a dominant synth melody over industrial beats, almost doom metal guitars and a hip-hop influenced vocal style that recalls the likes of ohGr and Katscan. It still has a cyberpunk atmosphere to it, albeit in a slower and more sinister way than Dope Stars Inc. fans will be used to.

The EP kicks off with the bleak atmosphere of 'Doom Trap' which does a great job setting up the project with a slow trip-hop meets cyber metal construction that is both hypnotic and heavy. This formula is continued onto the more rhythmically powered 'Machine Gun' which adds a more dance-friendly pace to the EP. The release is rounded off by 'Net Reality' which sticks to its guns and maintain the pace of the previous track but adds a bit more familiarity with it's Dope stars Inc. style chorus.

The sound is rough and ready and definitely has a DIY quality to it. But with it's minimal construction and the experience of Love behind the desk it sounds nice and modern as well. It has just the right amount of grit to it to give it that low-fi sound, but the mixing doesn't suffer for it.

'the Network' is an intriguing release from Victor Love. With one full-length Dope Stars Inc. album having been recently released, and another EP on the way, it will remain to be seen whether his solo output will get much opportunity to be explored further in 2015. But based on this snapshot, hopefully a follow-up EP, or even a full-length album is on the cards to further build on this release.

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