In 1998, D'Amore was a founding member of the gothic metal band Masquerade. Following a self-titled EP release, the band broke with their old frontman; in 1999, D'Amore reformed the band as My Sixth Shadow, with new frontman Dave Shadow and future Dope Stars Inc. member Fabrice La Nuit along with D'Amore's Masquerade bandmates. First self-described as "new wave gothic metal" but later moving into gothic rock, D'Amore composed the band's music, while Dave Shadow wrote lyrics. The band released its first self-titled album in 2000, and EP Sacrifice in 2002. The band then signed to German independent label Voice of Life Records for three albums, but were abandoned following their 2003 album release, 10 Steps To Your Heart.
In 1999, D'Amore formed the nu metal band Chaos Zero with members of My Sixth Shadow. The band broke up in September 2003.
Contemperaneous to the development of Dope Star Inc.'s first album Neuromance, My Sixth Shadow developed its next album release, Lovefading Innocence. Both Neuromance and Lovefading Innocence released in 2005 via Watch Me Fall Records. After the album release, My Sixth Shadow broke up.
In 2007, amidst production on fellow Dope Stars Inc. members' side projects, D'Amore began his own side project called Epochate with Italian electro-industrial producer Noras Blake, signing to Roman independent label Subsound Records. The duo released the album Chronicles Of A Dying Era in 2009, along with an instrumental version called Chronicles of a New Era.
First solo projects (2013–2016)
In 2013, D'Amore self-released an independent album, The Dome, under the solo project Hacking The Wave. The project focused more on chiptune compared to his contemporaneous work in Dope Stars Inc. In 2015, D'Amore self-released the EPThe Network, his first solo release as Victor Love: the EP was an experimental mix of industrial rock with other genres like doom rock and hip-hop. The EP carried a stated DIY subculture ethos, with the music video for track "Doom Trap" recorded using a camera phone. Later in 2015, he self-released the Hacking The Wave EP Circuit Breakers.
In 2015, D'Amore announced the reformation of My Sixth Shadow, republishing their discography to Bandcamp as pay what you want digital downloads, and promised the release of an album that had been composed in 2005 prior to the end of the band. As of 2026[update], My Sixth Shadow has not released any new work.
VirtuaVerse, Master Boot Record, and Keygen Church (2016-)
D'Amore chose the vegvísir as one of MBR's logos to 'guide him through the storm' of a new musical endeavour.
In 2016, D'Amore began development of a cyberpunk, point-and-click adventure gameVirtuaVerse with the development team Theta Division Games, a partnership with programmer Alessio "Elder0010" Cosenza and visual artist Valenberg; D'Amore wrote the story, composed the soundtrack and did sound design. The project coalesced after Valenberg made Victor Love Technomancy album art in a pixel art style: impressed, D'Amore proposed creating a video game together.
Shortly after beginning work on VirtuaVerse, D'Amore was inspired to produce synth metal. Between September 1 and 23, 2016, D'Amore recorded and released two albums and two EPs of original music on Bandcamp under the moniker Master Boot Record (MBR). The persona of MBR is that the actual performer is the computer D'Amore programs the music on, referred to D'Amore by its specifications '486DX-33Mhz-64mb'. D'Amore pretends that the computer has achieved artificial sentience via enchantment with Icelandic magical staves (dubbed 'spellware').
MBR joined the Swedish chiptune label Data Airlines[sv] in 2017, releasing the album INTERRUPT REQUEST. MBR then changed labels to Blood Music[Wikidata] for the 2018 album Direct Memory Access, featuring vocals from Laurent Lunoir[Wikidata] of Öxxö Xööx[fr] and Igorrr. Later that year, MBR released another album, Virus.DOS. That year, D'Amore began a side project, Keygen Church, which combined synth metal with symphonic metal, particularly inspired by baroque music.
In 2019, MBR released Internet Protocol, which had an alternate reality game tie-in involving a personal web server D'Amore operated to access the hidden album Warez, a compilation of video game music covers. In 2020, Theta Division Games released VirtuaVerse with Blood Music as a first-time game publisher. MBR released the game's OST under Blood Music as VirtuaVerse.OST, which had been composed in 2016 at the project's inception.
Following the release of VirtuaVerse, MBR joined Metal Blade Records, releasing the album Floppy Disk Overdrive later in 2020. In 2024, D'Amore made his first Keygen Church album release with Metal Blade, Nel Nome Del Codice. Starting in 2025, MBR began to do live tours, where D'Amore was joined by drummer Giulio Galati of Nero di Marte, and guitarist Edoardo Taddei. MBR first toured with French experimental musician Igorr across Europe. In 2026, MBR released Computer Metal, an experimental album which featured Cubase-programmed MIDI production paired with live guitar work across a mix of metal subgenres. That year, MBR headlined a North American tour, then did a European tour co-headlining with the Italian death metal band Fulci.
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