Album review: Humour – Learning Greek

Humour’s debut album Learning Greek is a beautiful panic attack in slow motion. The Glasgow avant-punk weirdos have gone full existential here, and while it might not be the life-affirming riot you were expecting, it is an ambitious, often bonkers journey into the mind of a man trying to decode his heritage.

At the heart of it all is frontman Andreas Christodoulidis, who, in a bold move, decided to learn Greek and instead accidentally found himself on a journey into the depths of his ancestral bloodline. The result? An album where his dad reads Greek poetry, ghosts of ancient warriors drop in for tea, and a serial killer whines about his bad Yelp reviews.

Opener Neighbours kicks the door in with noisy paranoia and oven-based menace, while Memorial turns unrelenting tragedy into a toe-tapper with big burly riffs thrown in for good measure. Meanwhile, Plagiarist stands tall as the album’s anthem, a meta-meltdown about writer’s block, with guitars sharp enough to shave your soul. It’s basically a panic spiral, but catchy.

What really sets Learning Greek apart, though, is its refusal to sit still. Just when you think you’ve got its jagged post-punk edges figured out, it lurches into moments of surprising beauty, like the melancholic I Only Have Eyes, or the spoken-word intimacy of the title-track. Humour aren’t just making noise for the sake of it; they’re wrestling with identity, mortality and meaning.

There are some lulls, mind. Sometimes the moodiness threatens to drown the melody, and not every track earns its philosophical baggage. In The Paddies walks the line between haunting and just haunted, but Learning Greek is never boring. It's chaotic, clever, and just unhinged enough to charm the eyeliner off your face.

Verdict: 3/5

For Fans of: IDLES, Interpol, Turnstile

Learning Greek is released on August 8 via So Young Records