Humble Grumble

The Italian AltrOck label has extremely high musical standards, and Humble Grumble, one of their latest signings as of early 2011, display this in spades. On the evidence of their label debut, Flanders Fields, Humble Grumble can do practically anything. The question is whether doing quite so much is a good idea. First, make no mistake, although wacky, this is a group of astoundingly accomplished musicians. Theoretically at least, some portion of the public should enjoy listening to what such musicians can do when operating at the peak of their powers, as they are here. And in the rock music world, wackiness shouldn’t count against them either.

Crazed jazzy and avant-proggy Belgian ensemble Humble Grumble seem "Zappa-esque" in their meld of anything-goes music and sometimes outrageous, sometimes incongruously dark lyrics, but the roots of the band are on the somewhat folkier side. Hungarian singer/guitarist Gabor "Humble" Vörös wandered around Europe before settling in the Ghent, Belgium area in 1993. He participated in a number of musical projects, including a somewhat oddball folk-rock outfit named Dearest Companion, also featuring multi-instrumentalist Tom Theuns. Vörös (on guitar and vocals) and Theuns (on bass) formed Humble Grumble in 1996, and a quintet version of the group toured Switzerland and Germany and recorded a pair of demos that year, The Golden Pile and The Tom and Gabor Special.