Norway's Virus are an eccentric post-metal project helmed since the year 2000 by erstwhile Ved Buens Ende vocalist and guitarist Czral (aka Carl-Michael Eide), whose uniquely twisted musical vision has seen the group compared to everyone from Canada's Voivod to Italy's Ephel Duath to Norway's own Ulver, for whom he actually played drums in 1993. Released some ten years later, Virus's first opus, Carheart, drew almost as many rave reviews as it did confused ones, but their second, 2009's The Black Flux, seemed to attract much more of the former, since by the time of its release the musical climate was significantly more tolerant of bands operating in the genre-crossing avant-garde. Incidentally, for that second album, Czral surrounded himself with bassist Plenum (aka Petter Berntsen) and drummer Esso (Einar Sjurso) -- both of them former colleagues of his in the aforementioned Ved Buens Ende. Also worth noting is that, on March 26, 2005, Czral fell (or, some say, jumped!) from a four-story building, ending up in the hospital where he duly recovered from his multiple fractures before resuming his musical career. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi
