On December 9th, 2008, Virago will release its debut, Gena.

Virago, in its original Latin sense, means a "strong, warrior-like woman", and, in its modern sense, a "noisy, domineering or quarrelsome woman".  It was chosen as a band name to reflect the band's tough, raucous and sexual sound.

Gena, a seven-song EP, recorded and produced in Brooklyn, NY, sounds like a fuzzed-out, noise-soaked, rock 'n' roll maelstrom, albeit one that appeals to one's primal pop sensibility.

Originally to be a ten-song full-length, the music was so powerful that it actually caused the hard-drive it was being created and stored on to self-destruct.  Fortunately, there were copies of the majority of the album's tracks to create this EP.

Virago is the creation of Josh Luft.  Born out of his need to simultaneously destroy everyone's eardrums and infect them with a fever to romp and writhe.  The music, lyrics and album art are all eruptions from his fervent mind.

Chris Mitchell, a naturally gifted multi-instrumentalist, collaborated on the music (by banging on things), recording (by mic'ing up the thrashing, wailing and banging) and production (by maximizing the levels of thrashing, wailing and banging) of the EP.

Influences of the Virago sound range from proto-punks the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, rockers the Rolling Stones and David Bowie, punks/post-punks Wire, the Fall and Desperate Bicycles, to 80's/90's alternatives Pavement, the Replacements, Sonic Youth, Galaxie 500, My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr.  Lyrically, Virago was inspired by desire, violence, memory, loss, dreams and the apocalypse.

Virago is here, not just out of a passion for music, but to tear apart the timid Indie and Mainstream worlds by bringing back the raw power of rock 'n' roll.