For those listeners who might've missed out on the work of phenomenal Dutch guitarist Corrie van Binsbergen and her Grote Brokken (Big Lumps) ensemble, Vier! (Four!), a best-of album of sorts, enables them to catch up. Van Binsbergen started her first Corrie en de Brokken (regular-sized Lumps, apparently) band 25 years prior to the 2011 release of Vier!, so the collection signals an important milestone. The 68-minute compilation includes live and studio tracks from three previous Corrie en de Grote Brokken discs dating back to 1997 -- the eponymous debut Corrie en de Grote Brokken, Kado Uit de Hel!, and Het Land Is Moe -- all presented as a wildly diverse mixtape/mishmash (including crazed vocals, hyper-swinging jazz, pulsing electronica, and straight-up rock & roll) that van Binsbergen considers to be "a whole new and energetic record." And while her fiery guitar is on full display -- suggesting Zappa, Vai, and even Hendrix -- van Binsbergen also gives the members of her Grote Brokken ensemble many opportunities to shine. Corrie en de Grote Brokken are a 12-piece horn-fueled avant-jazz-rock-blues powerhouse (poppier than the earlier Corrie en de Brokken outfit, but still quite adventurous), so plenty of other musicians are involved aside from the shredder-in-chief, with the instrumentation including two saxophones, trumpet, trombone, marimba and vibraphone, keyboards/sampling, bass, and drums, as well as two singers (female and male) and a second guitarist who also sings. The spotlight thus falls all over the place, making van Binsbergen somewhat comparable to a pair of guitarists from an adjacent country (Belgium) who have also featured prominently in Zappa-esque ensembles, namely Humble Grumble's Gabor Humble Vörös and the now defunct X-Legged Sally's Pierre Vervloesem (who has continued with Flat Earth Society and many other projects). In the U.S., miRthkon's Wally Scharold might even come to mind. In all these cases, the band is the thing, rather than a case of "guitar slinger plus backing musicians." But while all these groups have knelt at the Altar of Zappa, Corrie en de Grote Brokken are most likely to dispense with clever artiness, the better to achieve maximum enjoyment for a wide audience. With that goal in mind, Corrie and company segue into jump blues and swing revival territory, as if X-Legged Sally suddenly transformed into Roomful of Blues. Singer Bob Fosko (aka singer/actor Geert Timmers) becomes a jivin' frontman holding forth in front of the band, but most impressive is Beatrice van der Poel, a powerful rock-jazz-blues diva whose mastery of dynamics extends from the intimate to the rafter-shaking, and who knows her way around a pop/rock hook. Despite all the mixing and editing, the wide range of live and studio music covered by Vier! makes it less than entirely cohesive (imagine a single-disc Zappa mix covering the "best" of Lumpy Gravy, Just Another Band from L.A., The Grand Wazoo, and Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar). But with a guitarist and band this accomplished and eager to please, who's complaining? ~ Dave Lynch, Rovi