Robot Goes Here is an electropunk project of Dave Rand. After eight years playing in punk bands, Rand switched to laptop retro-chip sounds and a DIY approach.

There’s a lot of interesting 8-bit style synth work on Robot Goes Here’s The Byte Is In My Blood, including chip-noise drums and arpeggios. It sounds like Rand is trying to bring the attitude of punk to retro-electro.

The Achilles’ heel of the CD, though, is the songs, which fail to deliver the hooks and impact of great punk songs. The highlight of the CD is a cover of AC/DC’s Back In Black, which is “sung” by a voice synthesizer. The result is a bit like Stephen Hawking trying to rock out.

There’s a lot of unrealized potential on The Byte is in My Blood. We liked the chip sound synthwork and punk vocal approach. Rand’s talent might be better served, though, if he had bandmates to bounce his songs of.