Belgian avant rock, jazz, and experimental guitarist Pierre Vervloesem (X-Legged Sally, Flat Earth Society) had several albums to his name -- including Home Made (1994), Fi asc o (1996), and Chef-d'Oeuvre (1999) -- when he assembled the exploratory prog band Grosso Modo to record an eponymous album at Brussels' Rising Sun Studio in 2002. In contrast to that year's other Vervloesem recording, Plays John Barry, an album in which the guitarist was joined by nine other musicians to interpret music composed by the famous James Bond film composer, Grosso Modo featured a comparatively stripped-down quartet lineup of Vervloesem on guitar and bass, bassist Guy Segers (Univers Zero), drummer Charles Hayward (This Heat, Massacre), and keyboardist Peter Vandenberghe (X-Legged Sally, Univers Zero, Flat Earth Society). Grosso Modo's completely instrumental music was based in prog while leaping through such diverse sonic territories as metal, surf, funk, and outright noise, effects-laden and with numerous interludes of improvisation, which provided a sense of immediacy and real-time exploration even when the band was recording in a studio setting. An uncompromising yet also sometimes tuneful album mixed and mastered by Vervloesem at his own Studio Fiasco and released by the Carbon 7 label, Grosso Modo presented these four top musicians of avant/experimental rock and jazz at a creative peak, and would be the group's only recorded document. ~ Dave Lynch, Rovi