Live Review: Igorrr, Master Boot Record and Imperial Triumphant | O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London | 22/10/2025
On a cold, dark, rainy October evening, the incomparable and nearly indescribable Igorrr joined forces with American experimental metallers Imperial Triumphant and Italian computer-metal pioneer Master Boot Record to bring a special kind of noise to the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire.
Imperial Triumphant
Stepping out in front of the, at the time, modest crowd dressed in black robes with gleaming golden masks, and speaking only occasionally in heavily distorted vocals, Imperial Triumphant set the stage for the night to come with a barrage of snarling vocals and thundering guitars. A curious mix of art-deco aesthetics and crushing riffs reminiscent of death metal stalwarts like the eponymously titled Death, this three-piece grabbed the crowd’s attention by the throat. But just as you might think you have the band figured out, that you’ve seen everything they’ve got to show you, they mix things up with an ethereal, dream-like interlude of wailing, shivering bass guitar howling like supplicants prostrating themselves before an uncaring stone idol. It was a truly impressive mix of the pagan and profane, the quasi-modern and the primitive that set the stage for a night of music that was anything but mainstream.
Master Boot Record (MBR)
MBR, by contrast, were far more up-to-date…circa the late 1990’s, anyway. With a backdrop displaying MS-DOS install routines, scandisk progress bars and footage from retro videos games, MBR turned the stage into a Hollywood-style hacker’s paradise. The brainchild of Vittorio D’Amore, MBR‘s unique, chiptune-inspired riffs translated surprisingly well to the live stage and, arguably, had even more power and energy than the studio versions. Kicking things off with ‘config.sys’, this was a wide-ranging tour through MBR‘s catalogue, with tracks from as far back 2017’s C:\>CHKDSK /F, as recent 2024’s Hardwarez and everything in between. On some sets MBR has been playing a cover of ‘At Doom’s Gate’ from the iconic Doom map E1M1, but in London we were treated to ‘Tenebre Rosso Sangue’ from the Ultrakill soundtrack. By the time the set drew to a close, the circle pits were spinning and the glow sticks were flying, joined by the occasional floppy disk tossed from the stage bearing old-school delights like Day of the Tentacle and Lemmings, leaving only the headliners to wrap up the evening.
Igorrr
By the time Igorrr hit the stage the modest crowd had grown until everyone was shoulder to shoulder and ready to have their eardrums destroyed by their unique blend of metal, opera, breakbeat and baroque music. The band didn’t disappoint. Opening with the pulsing, thumping heartbeat of ‘Daemoni’, new album Amen was well represented in the night’s set list, with ‘ADHD’, ‘Blastbeat Falafel’, ‘Headbutt’ and more making an appearance. Sadly no actual pianos were destroyed by industrial equipment at the climax of ‘Headbutt’. Maybe they’ll keep that for the arena tour. The set was dressed with the drums and keyboards sitting on risers depicting hands clawing their way out from some damned netherworld, a tall, ominously smoke-spewing monk lurking in the background, looming over the stage like some macabre keeper of the dead.
Igorrr are an amazing band to experience in the flesh, to see first-hand how their approach of tossing every genre of music into a cement mixer and throwing it down a flight of stairs translates to a live performance. With quite a small stage to work from at this venue and, presumably, no real wish to heft actual pianos and harpsichords with them on tour, there’s a reliance on backing tracks to flesh out the many layers of each track, but that doesn’t take away at all from the final performance. Marthe Alexandre’s gorgeous soprano vocals are even more impressive in person when you can watch her belting out those high notes with what appears to be superlative ease, not missing a beat even when dueling with JB Le Bail’s harsh, snarling vocal delivery.
By the end of the evening, the circle pits were spinning, the crowd surfers were tumbling enthusiastically end over end towards the waiting security guards, and Gautier himself even leapt from the stage and into the crowd to snarl the final few lyrics and bring a night of definitely alternative metal to a close, finishing as they started – Triumphant.