Oblivion Clock is a collection of previously unreleased material
spanning the entire career of Norwegian avantgarde rock troupe Virus,
from their debut album Carheart sessions (2001) up until their final
album Memento Collider (2016). This reissue includes previously
unreleased material - two non-album tracks from the pre-Black Flux and
pre-Memento Collider eras respectively.
"Virus has always been a rather undeprictable proposition and
‘Oblivion Clock’ is no different, bringing minimal and concentrated
playing, the one the band is precicely known for, into its maximum,
further experimental status. A frantic, agonizing look into the history
of Virus featuring songs from every period of the band, even before.
Some songs are completely new, some of them are old but took their final
form for this album, it’s like an evolution map but contemporary, a
spanning of each Virus session plus more.
‘Oblivion Clock’ is as hypnotic and mesmerizing as the rest of
Virus’ music with Czral’s (Ved Buens Ende) low and trembling operatic croon calling you
into familiar fields. The music is mostly up-tempo and driven but dark
and dissonant with passages that twist and turn into the mind, a
pleasant antithesis. ‘The Pull of the Crater’ is one of the most eerie
tracks of the album, the numerous guitar layers used, offer greatly to
its essence, even small unoticeable parts or atmospheric sounds are
enough to find a way into the human psyche, like venturing into a
circular, spinning condition under the earth's surface, a condition of
an ongoing, spiral crawling as one waits for that exit light to come
closer, or should I say the ‘Gaslight Exit’, which is the kind of
feeling you get from the song as well. One thing that should not remain
unnoticed is Oblivion Clock’s short duration which is also a plus. Of
course this record needs multiple listens in order to grow on you, a
fact quite known with Virus, but the immediacy here is more present than
ever. ‘Saturday Night Virus' is playful and memorable, with the bonus,
hitherto unreleased Walker Brothers cover of the ‘Shutout’ being in the
same vein. One striking characteristic that can be found in most of
Virus’ music is the anxiety attacks, those musical labyrinths, they
manage to create from the way their music sounds to how they uniquely
craft their claustrophobic, fluidised opuses.
‘Oblivion Clock’ features the undisclosed novelty of Virus, not
exactly the same but still highly interesting, a weird approach of
discordant rhythmic structures and vocalizations, orotund and distant.
This album is nothing else but a deeper exploration of Virus’ continuing
evolution, an inner look to the surreal edge of metal’s avant-garde."
Metal Archives
Ltd. to 300 copies, 6-panel digipack with new and improved layout and two previously unreleased bonus tracks.
TRACK LIST:
1 Oblivion Clock 5:47
2 Inverted Escape 4:04
3 The Pull Of The Crater 5:16
4 Gaslight Exit 3:13
5 Intermission: Learning To Behave 3:44 *
6 Greyhound Swirl 5:49 *
7 Saturday Night Virus 4:17
8 Seen In The Sediments 5:42
9 Shutout 3:11
