Send "Justice " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 Certainly, there’s something to be said for stepping outside your comfort zone. The list of promotional tag lines for the much-anticipated new Justice album Audio, Video, Disco is long, and not entirely without merit: “Playing by their own rules!”; “Breaking boundaries!”; “Escaping from the niche of electronic music!”; “Hey, it’s not Cross 2!” I made that last one up, but it’s perhaps the finest point of logic for Audio, Video, Disco’s rather illogical artistic direction. Justice could have made anything after 2007’s commercial smash Cross and it likely would have sold well, but it quickly became apparent that the French duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay didn’t want to make Cross 2. That’s an admirable goal, and when “Civilization” aired in a fantastic A.D.I.D.A.S. commercial a few months back, their stadium ambitions seemed fairly well placed. The pair’s love for classic rock is well documented, both in their music and their penchant for living the clichéd rock star lifestyle, and an attempt to combine that trademark Ed Banger electro sound with whammy pedals and power chords should have been interesting, right? Unfortunately, there comes a point about a minute into Audio, Video, Disco where you realize that Justice have already veered far off the well-worn track of tribute and straight into leather-chapped parody. If there’s an analogy for Audio, Video, Disco in recent music, Lil Wayne’s Rebirth comes closest. Much as that ill-advised genre experiment took everything bad about contemporary rock ‘n roll and turned it into a sneering caricature of modern radio rock, Audio, Video, Disco takes all the clichés of ‘70s arena rock and turns it into an unending sequence of bad decisions. “Horsepower” isn’t the epic, fist-pumping arena rock of the Who in their heyday or Bon Jovi’s best moments, as Augé and Rosnay would have you believe – it’s the epic, fist-pumping-while-laughing-at-them histrionics of Spinal Tap and that Bon Jovi cover band that played at your uncle’s third wedding. Yet there’s hints of greatness here, of transforming the hard-edged electro aesthetic of Cross into the grimy, chunky riffs of their idols. Mixing electro and rock doesn’t have to be such a Frankensteinian proposition – “Helix” effectively supplants the duo’s undeniable funk into an air guitar-worthy buildup worthy of a rave, and “Horsepower,” for all its posturing and unnecessary orchestral peacocking, is still pretty badass. Sadly, too much of Audio, Video, Disco either comes off as so totally inauthentic that it’s hard to take Justice’s worshipping of their idols as serious, or its themes just stay flat in neutral. “Brianvision” spends the entirety of its three minutes revolving around an electric guitar line that never goes anywhere, as if the band had just discovered the instrument and were content to see how many different times they could play the same motif. “Parade” apes the stomp of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” but climaxes with a wordless chorus that begs for lighters to be waved ineffectually in the air. The mindless strut of “Canon” gives more credence to the idea that Europe always absorbs the worst traits of American popular music, in this case disposable cock rock and a ridiculous keyboard solo that Peter Gabriel would blush at. “Newlands,” meanwhile, with its “Won’t Get Fooled Again” intro riff and shameless ripping from the Boston, Foreigner et al. playbook, simply seems to ensure that Justice would prefer to emulate the golden age of stadium rock in the same way that Jersey Shore prefers to honor the Italian culture....full text |
| Prettymuchamazing |
| Justice’s long awaited follow-up to 2007′s break-out hit † has finally been announced. Audio, Video, Disco is the name of the album and it will be released on October 25th on the reputable Ed Banger Records. According to the French duo, Audio, Video, Disco was recorded in a span of 18 months and is more “rock-oriented” than †. Evidence of this brasher mien can be heard in slight on the album’s big party lead single, “Civilization”....full text |
| Robotpigeon |
| The new Justice album is not what you are expecting. It certainly wasn't what we were expecting after the unquestionable pop brilliance of singles 'Civilization' and 'Audio Video Disco'. What the new Justice album is, is 40 minutes of spellbinding electronic pop music and without question one of the most captivating and enjoyable albums of 2011. It doesn't really have any hit singles on it, but that's really not what 'Audio Video Disco' is all about. Like PJ Harvey winning the Mercury Music Prize for her album celebrating the album as an art form, Audio Video Disco is a similar concept - and as pretentious as 'a body of work' sounds, it's a pretentious description that suits here. A soundtrack to a classic eighties American movie that was never made, 'Audio Video Disco' is as big on the guitar riffs as it is the squealing electro, with opener 'Horsepower' mixing the two (with an apocalyptic orchestra thrown in for good measure) most evidently. 'Canon' finds Justice at their noisiest, but we're a long way here from the uncontrollable chaos of 'Stress' from their debut album. 'On'n'on' has shades of Peter Gabriel at his operatic pop best and 'Parade' is a soaring, gospel-influenced masterpiece, showing the sort of restraint Justice have, until now, sorely lacked. 'Newlands' echoes 'Civilization' with it's guest male vocals, this time from Morgan Phalen of Diamond Nights, but is far more ambitious with a pounding, climactic guitar solo dropped midway through the track. Meanwhile 'Helix' is ridiculously upbeat slice of disco-pop and the title track is, quite simply, one of the finest electropop moments of 2011. An entirely different beast to Justice's brilliant-but-messy debut, 'Audio Video Disco' sees the French duo step into their sound and make the mark on the music world we've long hoped they would. And look - we've made it through an entire piece on Justice without mentioning Daft Punk once. Consider those robotic apron-strings well and truly cut....full text |
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