Friday, December 15, 2017

Virus (CAN) - "Bio-Level 4" [1996]

Artist: Virus
Title: Bio-Level 4
Genre: Industrial Metal
Country: Canada
Release date: 1996

Track List:
  1. Borderline
  2. Syndrome
  3. At War
  4. Bio-Level 4
  5. Tainted
  6. The Mutant Factor
  7. Second Skin
  8. New Breed Machine
  9. Necrotech
  10. Bleeding
  11. Unit
  12. Anti-Matter 
  13. Syndrome (Remix) + hidden track
Here's a very obscure industrial metal album made in Canada, released about the same time as "Phobos" by Voivod and "Demanufacture" by Fear Factory, to which it's often compared. It does sound very similar to "Demanufacture", althought Virus aren't as heavy as Fear Factory, so I can understand why people in Youtube comments compare them to Pitchshifter instead.

The songs on their one and only album, "Bio Level 4", while being somewhat monotonous and unmemorable, shouldn't disappoint anyone who's searching for something what sounds alike mid-90s Fear Factory, with the same "technological"/dystopian aesthetics. The riffs on "Bio Level 4" are as "mechanical" as they could be (although no one can beat Meshuggah on that). Along with Flash Terrorist, Virus were one of that mid-90s Fear Factory followers who released only one album and then disappeared - which is a pity because their material, while being not perfect, was clearly showing a lot of potential.

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