Virus biography
Virus were a psychedelic band originating from Bielefeld in Northern Germany. Their music incorporates Pink Floyd's space rock, heavy keyboards somewhat reminiscent of Deep Purple all put together into long songs filled with jams. They released only two albums -- "Revelation" (1970) and "Thoughts" (1971). The album was recorded in Star Studios, Hamburg and produced by Konrad Plank. The Virus lineup for the first album is: Werner Monka (guitar), Jorg-Dieter Krahe (organ), Bernd "Molle" Hohmann (vocals, flute), Reinhold Spiegelfeld (bass) and Wolfgang Rieke (drums).
"Revelation" starts as a straight forward psychedelic track and develops as the song conines forward. Towards the middle of the song comes in a cover of the Rolling Stones song -- Paint It Black. Another homage is found in the second song where at the end you can hear a Saucerful Of Secrets choir bit. This album is very inventive and contains surprises along the different tracks. These songs have long guitar playing parts and exciting organ playing, both demonstrating very good musicianship.
The second album "Thoughts" is a big change from their first one. The lineup change considerably as well, leaving only Krahe and Rieke from the original group. The new members were: Axel Nieling (drums), Jurgen Schafer (bass, vocals), Bernd Rosner (guitar) and Werner Vogt (bass, guitar, vocals). In this album they abandoned their long tracks and space rock and psychedelic nature. This album presents a more mainstream approach with blues rock songs. Therefore this would not be of interest for those looking them for their psychedelic and progressive sound.
In 2004 a 1973 live show was released under the name Remember.
1 Everybody Knows That I've Got That Feeling 4:03
2 This Is No Anarchy 4:44
3 Remember 5:22
4 Rock 'n' Roll 3:38
5 In Any Way 4:59
6 Settle Down 3:58
7 Living In The Country 7:25
8 King Heroin 5:11
9 Woods Fun 10:07
Drums – Wolfgang Rieke
Guitar – Reinhard Iffländer
Keyboards – Jörg-Dieter Krahe
Percussion – Axel Nieling
Saxophone – Jürgen Dose
Vocals, Bass – Jürgen Schäfer, Werner Vogt