BINARY DIGIT TEMPLE

It's an impossibility in this age to come across a band that truly sounds like no one else in the business, but the Greek trio Missigno comes darn close. Categorizations such as progressive rock, electronic rock, jazz fusion, synthwave and progressive electronic all sort of touch on the music on this album, but none of them really covers the full scope of the band's influences and stylistic ambitions.

One thing that must be said right away about Missigno is that they are very plugged in: George Constantinou's bass is electronically enhanced so as to almost sound like a square wave and drummer Jason Wastor frequently reaches over for his electric pads, but it's his relative (presumably?) Nicholas whose synthesizers dominate the album from beginning to end. The two-minute "Decode Session" is a perfect introduction to the band's production and composition style: tons of major seventh keys and weird chord progressions over a steady driving beat, led by an analog(-ish?) synth solo and drowning in tons of phasing synth overdubs and even some Mellotron samples. The title track, "Boba Fett" and "Merfolk Sensei" follow in the same pattern, with some tasteful guest spots for guitar on the first two and for sax and flute on the latter; "Boba Fett" also sports a more playful tone compared to the rest of the album which is generally rather dark and intense.

But the most distinguishing feature of Missigno in this nascent moment of their career is their improvisations, which make up eight out of thirteen tracks on this album: there's a bit more premeditation going on here than on your average rock jam, as these improvised sessions are heavily subjected to loops, edits, samples and overdubs so as to maintain the album's otherworldly atmosphere and wall-of-sound production style. Not every single one of them is guaranteed to please: "Finos Film Under Attack" wears out its welcome a tiny bit and "Digital Parasites" may offend some ears with its shrill synth bleeps and dissonant arpeggios, but the "Checkpoint" duology with its excellent drum part and its ominous, gradually intensifying keyboard layers kicks ass; "Automaton Dream Sequence" almost resembles psychedelic trance music and yet doesn't feel out of place at all on what is still unmistakably a rock album; "Shapeshifters" is an impressive, fiery keyboard jam and the closing "Exit, Crash" is a masterpiece on which Missigno prove themselves to be the masters of slowly intensifying buildups. The 13-minute running time of this track is fully justified as it transforms itself from a slow, sparse techno beat to another finely drummed jam (this time with the bass taking front stage) and finally to a distorted hellish march before leaving the listener with a few final synthy soundscapes.

With Binary Digit Temple, a long album that is nevertheless absolutely worth the investment, Missigno take progressive rock music into new, rarely explored territories. Without any reservations I can say: this is the sound of the future.