It's been four years since the French electronic duo Justice delivered their masterpiece, Cross, and today they're back with their highly anticipated follow-up, Audio, Video, Disco. The lead single from the album, "Civilization" was classic Justice, with a pounding beat and a theatrical epicness that one would expect from Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay. Since "Civilization" debuted, though, snippets of other songs have leaked to mixed reactions. Now, with today's release of the full album, I'll go track by track to see just how Audio, Video, Disco stacks up to Justice's other work.
1. "Horsepower": It starts out nice, with a growling guitar much like that on "Civilization", the song it proceeds. Along with some brighter synth portions as well as some darker strings, it's a good way to kick off the album. The song's good, but it acts as a prelude to Civilization and doesn't stand out on its own quite enough.
2. "Civilization": You've all heard this one before, but it bears repeating that "Civilization" is just a damn good anthem. The guitars erupt and scream on the track, and the whole thing has a brilliant grinding tension in the first minute of the song that ends up in an electronic explosion, with a heavy beat kicking in and sending this song into outer space. This one's better than a good number of songs on Cross, and will definitely be spinning at clubs for years to come.
3. "Ohio": ...the can't be all great, though, right? It's really the lyrics that mess up the song. Repeating "Ohio, Tennessee, California, Endlessly...right on" over and over again, just what are they trying to say? I know electronic music isn't exactly known for having lyrical depth, but the lyrics just feel so disjointed from the song underneath. And that's a shame, because the instrumental part of the song is quite nice, something that you can enjoy in the (mostly) lyricless last minute of the song.
4. "Canon - Primo": Just a little harpsichord-ish intro to the proper "Canon"
5. "Canon": This one reminds me a little bit of Daft Punk's "Robot Rock" with its heavy guitar riff (something that seems to be a trend on this album). The song has a real drive to it, with synths, guitars and thunderous drums fighting for sonic space throughout the track.
6. "On'n'On": The singing on the track sounds like some long lost vocal from a forgotten 70s vocalist, combined with a strings happy Justice dropping something a lot more melodic than the previous tracks behind it. It works really well, and is probably one of the most newcomer-friendly tracks Justice has done so far. It also ends with a huge outro that glides seamlessly into the next track...
7. "Brianvision": Not a whole lot going on in this track. It's not that it's bad or anything, but it's also not good. Seeing that "Canon" and "On'n'On" really delivered the goods previously, this song can be forgiven for being a bit of a lull.
8. "Parade": I'm really getting a Queen vibe from this album as I get deeper into it. Aping the stomps and hand-claps from "We Will Rock You" as they do on this track, I'm guessing it was intentional. The song also includes some welcome weirdness, with the audio inexplicably dropping out for a couple of seconds right before the end and a glitchy, staccato intro, but the middle feels a little limp, like it's trying to get by on the Queen vibe they set the song up with.
9. "New Lands": This one starts off sort of uninteresting, without a whole lot going on at first other than a falsetto vocal on top of what sounds like an alternate take of "Civilization", but at around the 2:30 mark, the song shifts gears and starts accelerating on its own and really working by the time it's done.
10. "Helix": The chopped up vocal snippets on this are nice, giving the song a vocal punch without dominating the song. But the guitar that does dominate the song sort of sounds like a variation on the same riff that has been pervading the rest of the songs. The riff itself is good enough on its own, but I feel like Justice is leaning on it way too hard, especially at this point, ten tracks in. Even though the song does another gear change toward the end, it just doesn't deliver
11. "Audio, Video, Disco": The harpsichord from "Canon-Primo" returns here on the final track to lead us into a chaotic, heady, bass drum heavy send-off in the final track on the album. All that chaos burns off by the end of the song, but I'm not sure if it's the best way to go. I would have liked for Audio, Video, Disco to spend its last few minutes really blowing the windows off, but it doesn't. It instead chooses to ease into something quieter and quieter until it's just done. Maybe if there had been some more real bangers on this album it would have been a welcome come down, but as it stands, it's more disappointing than relaxing.
So, there we go, all eleven tracks laid out on the examination table. The only songs that I had a major aversion to were "Ohio" and "Brianvision", just because they seemed so lazy and uninspired. The other songs, even though most of them had parts that didn't deliver, at least had some portion that redeemed them enough to warrant a second listen.
As for my impressions of the album as a whole, I think it marks a change in Justice's overall feel, and it might have been designed to deliver a hard kick against the people who expected them to deliver another Cross. It's not Cross, far from it, and right now I don't think it's as good as Cross, but it does stand on its own as a strong album that has the potential to grow as you listen to it more. I think a lot of Cross fans won't be happy with Audio, Video, Disco, but I think as the years wear on, and Justice hopefully takes less than four year between each release, this could fit in well as we watch Justice evolve from house DJs with massive beats to maybe something more refined and subtle.
The album is for the most part a three star work, but there are moments here, of great brilliance, that add the extra star for me. A lot of people will be disappointed that they're not just re-hashing Cross, but I'm happy they're not