Steelbyte

COMPUTER METAL - THE NEW ALBUM 30 OCTOBER 2026 ON METAL BLADE DOT MATRIX - NEW SINGLE OUT NOW ASCII art typed by hand by TAINTED / FIRE Mastering by Joel Wanasek Ten years ago I had one intent: to start a music project that would break the rules by writing heavy metal using only synthesizers and MIDI, to boost the power and speed of human composition, to stream the process live and capture my intent as a composer on the fly. Over the years this project has been mislabeled too many times. Then a voice rose on its own to name what it really was, and that voice said: Computer Metal. It first appeared in comments on the internet, then it became the slogan of our shows. Now it finally becomes an album: a Codex of what this new genre represents and what message it delivers. Ten different styles of computer metal, each influenced by a different genre of the metal canon. First written as a fully synthesized album, then humanized by the hand of man. But the path that led us here has deep roots. I grew up between heavy metal, demoscene and videogames, in my father's computer shop, a software pirate's den from '86 to the late '90s. Cryptography followed me: every album carries crypto puzzles or ARGs, with secrets and bonus tracks to win, running on a server I built and still maintain, complete with a BBS and an IRC server. Over 44 videogame covers later, in 2022 the project evolved into a live band, with Eddy on shred guitar and Giulio on drums. The concept of our live show is based on one simple rule: Machines do Machines. Humans do Humans. For it is nonsense for humans to try to do what machines do best, and nonsense to let machines do what humans do best. Rather than pretending to play programmed music live, as the vast majority of bands do, we let machines do exactly what they are meant to do: render, in real time, perfectly inhuman, quantized, preprogrammed music. And we, as humans, play live together with the machines, giving the music humanity and error, making the live experience a special, unique moment. A baritone guitar, a lead guitar and drums on one side; on the other, a Commodore 64 and an Amiga 500 modified to be played by hand as synthesizers. Yes, these are computers too, but under direct command. CRTs spinning the videos that inspired the project, and visuals synced to the music, in a full multimedia experience. For it is humans that shall command machines, and not machines that shall command humans. THIS IS COMPUTER METAL SPREAD THE CODE