Virus rose out of the ashes of Czral's 90's avantgarde black metal outfit Ved Buens Ende in 2000.
With
him, he brought bassist Plenum (of Audiopain fame) and drummer Einz
(Beyond Dawn etc.) to create a new kind of experimental metal / rock,
based on the dissonant chord foundations laid in Ved Buens Ende.
The
trio recorded their only demo the same year and were rapidly picked up
by Jester Records who released their debut album, Carheart in 2003. The
album received many positive reviews, but some reviewers were also
bewildered by the band's unorthodox way of creating music, the
outlandish playfulness of the cover and the surreal lyrics.
The band was put on hiatus for a few years, not least because of Czral's 2005 accident, rendering him hospitalized for a year.
After
a futile attempt at resurrecting Ved Buens Ende with former founding
member Vicotnik in 2006, Czral decided to continue with Virus instead,
and the original line-up of him, Plenum and Einz spent the next year
writing what would become the band's second album; The Black Flux.
The
album was released by Season Of Mist in November 2008 and this time the
world seemed more prepared for the experimenting ways of Virus. The
Black Flux received mostly very positive reviews and it was even
awarded album of the year in several publications.
Virus
spent most of 2009 writing another set of songs for their third album,
which they started recording late that year. They soon found themselves
without a bass player though, as Plenum was unable to continue with the
band.
After a lengthy search, the band hooked up with multi-instrumentalist Bjeima, who agreed to play session bass on the new album.
The Agent That Shapes The Desert was completed autumn 2010 and released February 2011
on Virus' own imprint, Virulent Music. It received mostly rave reviews and some places it
also made album of the year.
2011 finally saw the live debut of Virus, with their longtime peers Ulver at the fancy Koko theatre
in London. They have since played at a number of festivals; Sonisphere (Greece),
Hole In The Sky (Norway) and Aurora Infernalis (The Netherlands).
In
2012 Virus were invited to perform at the prestigious Roadburn Festival
(The Netherlands), Brutal Assault (Czech Republic) and the new Bunker
Festival in their hometown of Oslo. They also played two
one-off shows in Oslo, one of them supporting Czral's lifelong
"mentors" VOIVOD. A new release; Oblivion Clock, comprising several
unreleased tracks and the
highly sought after Agent... diehard 7" tracks as bonus was prepared in the fall,
for the band's first tour in Europe during December.
After
their December 2012 tour, Czral and Einz took a few weeks off before
starting sporadic work on material for their 4th full-length album. By
fall 2013 rehearsals started to become more frequent and during the
winter 2013/14 the band could happily report that original bass player
Plenum had returned to the fold.
The
band made a brief return to the live arena in April for a one-off
performance supporting Goblin in Oslo, and during the fall of the same
year they played the small Norwegian mountain festival Til Dovre
Falleras well as two exclusive shows at the NYC Saint Vitus Club. Their
overseas live debut was a great success, with two nearly sold out shows
that went down a storm with the crazed audience.
Recordings
for the fourth album are commencing in late February 2015. It has been
given the tentative title Memento Collider and some tracks set for
inclusion are Rogue Fossil, Gravity Seeker, Dripping Into Orbit as well
as several others. Inbetween recordings Virus will play a couple of
festival shows; the Inferno Festival in Oslo on April 2nd and the
Roadburn Festival in Holland (their second time) on April 10th. Memento
Collider will, dog willing, be ready for release sometime in the fall.
TO BE CONTINUED... |