Justice ‘Audio Video Disco’

 

A lot has changed since the French twosome Justice were in their pomp and considered the coolest thing since le pain en tranches. It is no longer 2007 (or 05/06 if we’re to truly going to get on our Nathan Barley shaped high horses here). We’ve now got bigger fish to fry than birds with flu, Zinedine Zindane’s monstrous and brilliant butt is a thing assigned to the recesses of youtube memory and Obama is now more debt plan than Batman. Importantly, the kids who were spearheading lovey-dovey mosh pits at Justice concerts- all neon-ed up and feeling invincible off their first and best taste of MDMA- are now older, wearier and probably unemployed in recession Britain/World.

 

The point being that it’s hard to see where Justice- whose music was always quite schlocky and emptily bombastic- fits in now. Whereas the irresistible hooks and jerks of ‘Cross’ made it easy to overlook their occasional tackiness, on ‘Audio Video Disco’ Justice sound to have run out of both steam and ideas.

 

There’s definitely a strong rock theme here, particularly in ‘Horsepower’ and ‘Canon’, for example. But unfortunately this doesn’t remind you of Daft Punk rocking the fuck out on ‘Robot Rock’, rather it makes you think of James Hetfield in the 90s, waking up and feeding himself with cocaine and booze for breakfast while wondering how he became such a pastiche of himself. Washed up is the phrase I think.

 

Strangely on ‘Audio Visual Disco’, everything is wrapped in layers of references and duplications, creating a strange context. Metallica? The Who? Queen? They’re all in here. But it’s not like Justice use notable samples or re-edit old songs, rather they create an odd, sticky layer of sound which pastiches old rock songs. Often they just sound like some West End rock musical which strains to suggest certain songs- imply a musical era or style- without ever infringing on copyright by doing full on cover versions.

 

‘Audio Video Disco’ does have some highlights to pick out of the rubble. ‘On ‘n’ On’ stands out with its cool, clipped funk and quasi-gangster bounce. ‘Parade’ is another semi-gem (even if it does sound a bit like Carlos Santana riffing over Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’) with its sinister build up and reasonably satisfying eventual beat drop.

 

Unfortunately these moments are too few and far between to make this album anything more than a strange mismatched collection of half arsed and meandering electro songs. Four years is a long time between first and second albums (particularly in the hyper-accelerated world of electronic music) and Justice would probably have been better off just attempting ‘Cross’ pt2 rather than the limp, crude ‘Audio Video Disco’.