Год выхода: 2011
Страна: Norway
Жанр: Avant-Garde Metal / Progressive Rock
Продолжительность: 43:17

Треклист:
01. The Agent That Shapes The Desert
02. Continental Drift
03. Chromium Sun
04. Red Desert Sand
05. Intermission: Furnace Creek
06. Dead Cities Of Syria
07. Where The Flame Resides
08. Parched Rapids
09. Call Of The Tuskers 

Czral (Carl-Michael Eide) - Vocals, Guitar (2000-) (Ved Buens Ende, Dшdheimsgard, Cadaver Inc, Infernц, Aura Noir, Satyricon, Ulver, Dimmu Borgir)
Bjeima - Bass (2010-) (Yurei, Delirium Bound, Konstriktor, The Ghost Conspiracy, M)
Esso (Einar Sjurso) - Drums (2000-) (Lamented Souls, Beyond Dawn, Infernц, Ved Buens Ende)

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Основным ядром этого великолепного квартета были певец и исполнитель на флейте Bernd Hohmann и гитарист Werner Monka. Музыканты находились под сильным влиянием таких английских команд, как PINK FLOYD и DEEP PURPLE, почти все их композиции были многочастными, но довольно динамичными, с изрядной долей сольных вставок Monka и Dieter Krahe, который своим органом придавал музыке группы своеобразный колорит. Дебютная пластинка содержала пять вещей, одной из которых была превосходная обработка роллинговской Paint it black. VIRUS превратили некогда ударный ритм энд блюзовый номер в мощную композицию с прото эпической структурой, обрамленной потрясающими партиями хаммонда. Хотя надо отметить, что авторский материал не поблек на фоне сверх удачного кавера. Эпическая Endless game удачно сочеталась с более хард-рок ориентированной Burning candle. И хотя ближе к концу пластики запал несколько угасает, общее впечатление остается более чем положительным. http://www.lastfm.ru/music/Virus
http://www.myspace.com/czral

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Virus rose out of the ashes of avant-garde black metal innovators VED BUENS ENDE in the year 2000. VBE founding member, songwriter and vocalist/drummer Carl-Michael "Czral” Eide wished to further explore the more outlandish terrains of his former band and asked bass player extraordinaire Petter "Plenum” Berntsen (of AUDIOPAIN fame) and versatile drummer Einar "Einz” Sjursø (BEYOND DAWN, INFERNÖ, LAMENTED SOULS) to join him.
The debut album ‘Carheart’ was released by Jester Records in 2003. It combined the off the wall riffing of Eide with an almost post-rock (sometimes bordering on jazz) rhythmic foundation, and topped it off with totally absurd lyrical and visual imagery. Most reviewers hailed it as a masterpiece while a few didn’t get it all.
After the debut, Virus went off the radar for several years, not least because of Eide’s 2005 accident, falling five stories and making a two year-recovery. But, as they say, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, and never has this been more apt. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8871149106
http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=12540

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The last Virus album, 2008’s ‘The Black Flux’, would have qualified as a triumphant achievement even if its creation hadn’t required Carl-Michael Eide’s remarkable and painful recovery from an horrific fifth-floor fall.
The album streamlined the mischievous energy and oddness of ‘Carheart’ into something even more focused and effective.
This follow-up comes relatively quickly, even taking into account a delay due the pressures of the band’s new-found self-sufficiency (having left Season of Mist). Therefore it’s unsurprising that there’s less of a noticeable progression this time round.
The band have marked out a very particular and consistent style that owes most to Voivod circa ‘Dimension Hatröss’, and in particular Piggy D’Amour’s dissonant fretwork. It’s a testament to the late guitarist that there’s still plenty of exploratory room in the areas he pioneered.
Eide’s dry and trebly guitar work deals in a vocabulary of dissonant chords and unlikely riffs which are rendered memorable by straightforward and repetitive song structures. ‘Red Desert Sand’ in particular displays this knack for fashioning catchy tracks out of obtuse Beefheart-like guitar figures.
Bjeima’s arresting bass playing is more prominent in the mix than before. It’s both agile and insistently repetitive, always sounding central to the compositions and avoiding jazz-metal excess. Einar Sjurso’s drumming is tight but with a definite swing and odd, subtle phrasing that adds to the off-kilter feel of the grooves. It’s evident that all three genuinely contribute to the band’s sound on a near-equal footing.
Tension is the dominant characteristic here, subtly varying degrees of which are the very material of these songs. The opening title track sees the bass taking the melodic role as the guitars relentlessly worry single chords. ‘Continental Drift’ comes on abruptly at a similar pace and in a similar key, like part two of the same track.
Both show a fondness for 3/4 and 6/4 time signatures and feature angular mid-sections that remind me of King Crimson.
Scott Walker is another comparison that repeatedly springs to mind - the kinetic ‘Chromium Sun’ puts me in mind of his recent ‘Cossacks Are’, and the vocal on ‘Dead Cities of Syria’ hovers at a tangent to the music in a way reminiscent of Scott, but with a measure of Nemtheanga-like epic metal sensibility. (In fact, it turns out that a limited edition of the album includes a 7” featuring a cover of ‘Shutout’ from the Walker Brothers’ ‘Nite Flights’ album). The by-now-traditional intermission track, "Furnace Creek”, is like a prog take on Link Wray.
There’s an austere, arid feel to the sound that’s mirrored in the desolate environments (internal and external) described in the lyrics. There’s little in the way of samples and keyboards are used sparingly, like the doomy, tolling piano chords on "Where the Flame Resides”.
The mood lightens unexpectedly with the closing ‘Call of the Tuskers’, which sounds close to recent Enslaved, and a bit post-rock. Garm’s guest vocal sounds jarringly conventional here, especially as he sings solo rather than doubling Einar. However the assuredness of the album as a whole leads me to suspect that there’s some lyrical or conceptual reason for this.
This music strikes many difficult balances. It is uptempo and dynamic yet haunting, obtuse but catchy, arch but impassioned, pessimistic yet vibrant, and clever without forgetting to rock like the proverbial. There’s a sense throughout of a band in command of their self-defined idiom, and intent on working within self-imposed limits rather than embarking on eclectic tangents.
Third time around, they might not retain the shock of the new, and though the album is very much in the same vein as ‘The Black Flux’, it arguably refines and improves that formula in some ways, and nothing here sounds less than vital. Virus are an undeniably exceptional band who deserve more attention than they’re used to, and who can’t be taken for granted http://www.metalireland.com/2011/01/12/virus-the-ag...apes-the-desert/
http://www.metalunderground.com/news/details.cfm?newsid=55872
http://www.duplicate-records.com/viruspreorder.htm

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