Justice…aah-ahhhhhhh…saviours of the universe…? Shiny spandex and rock leathers are in, the dancefloor fluorescence of ‘†’ is last season; Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé casting dancefloors asunder so that auditoriums and amphitheatres can prepare to digitally rock out to the sound of two/three headed key-tars and dry ice wrestling long shaggy manes.
Their sophomore has all the histrionics of a so-bad-it-becomes-cultish stage show and movies perilously close to a B-rating, and shouldn’t really be for home consumption – there’s no room for Rosnay and Augé to fly into your living room via trapeze. And though the following of an episodic timeline would’ve been better, ‘Audio, Video, Disco’ is a Gallic electrifier where performance art and prog rock rules, and overblown doesn’t mean a rash mess.
Justice know all the cues that get punters throwing up the sign of the horns, and electro-pop such as ‘Ohio’, ‘On’n’On’ and the title track show rock hedonism hasn’t totally messed with their head. ‘Civilization’ lent itself to an advert for Adidas, and the way the strutting ‘Canon’ reprograms Daft Punk’s ‘Robot Rock’ shows that a) they’re keyboard gods with kick-ass solos, and b) they’re a woman’s droid – no time to talk.
Led Zeppelin, The Who and Queen (in keeping with the Flash Gordon theme, acknowledgment is most explicit with ‘We Will Rock You’ handclaps on ‘Parade’): references where fans of ‘the cross’ could well ask what the hell is going on. Take both albums as separate entities and you’ll be fine, and if alienation is the upshot, what a way to go about it.
8/10
Words by MATT OLIVER
