Customer Reviews

Cross

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Every now and then somebody releases an album that isn't incredibly serious or groundbreaking, but is, above all, just plain fun. "Cross" definitely falls into that category. It's basically a party on a disc.

It's refreshingly light in approach. Justice obviously doesn't take themselves too seriously as one can tell by tracks like "D.A.N.C.E." - but that doesn't mean they lack substance. Although one can never be sure, it doesn't seem like the work of a one-hit wonder. For one thing, there are a number of strong tracks on the album and, most importantly, they have an original take on the electro-glam sound that is so popular these days.

A lot of reviews compare this to Daft Punk, but I think those comparisons have more to do with the fact that these groups are both French duos working in the same general BPM area. Maybe there are more similarities than that, but Justice isn't not nearly as repetitive as Daft Punk tends to be and their songs are more gritty and dirty. Above all, I have to resist this temptation to pre-judge them based on my feelings about Daft Punk. I hope listeners will hear them as their own group - not mere copycats. Actually, I think they're more like Basement Jaxx than anything else - but that's beside the point.

I've particularly enjoyed the way they can blend harsh noise and dissonance with such catchy melodies and pop hooks. "Let There Be Light" is brutal, but compelling. By all calculation, it should be grating on your ears, but instead you just want to dance. While the rhythm is tight, there's this wonderful feeling of looseness as if the instrumental parts weren't entirely quantized on a grid. The lack of rigidity seems to be one of the key factors in the very danceable nature of this disc.

As a side note, I couldn't finish this review without a nod to my favorite Italian prog rock band, Goblin whose soundtrack to Dario Argento's "Tenebre" makes an appearance on "Phantom." Well, more than an appearance - it's basically the whole song. I realize that Goblin isn't as popular as they once were, but I hope some Justice fans will check out their music because they were using synthesizers waaay back in the days of Kraftwerk.

Overall, this is an inspired debut from a promising new band. Although it may not entirely live up to some of the raves here, it's strong and good for repeat listenings. If you're a fan of electro or anything like Basement Jaxx, I would highly recommend this CD. It's fun and easily accessible right from the start, but it has enough depth to make you keep listening again and again.

All I can say about this album is WHOA

If you have a powerful stereo this album will rock the house like nothing I've ever heard. Its incredibly dynamic, almost tearing the air around you. Mix in a little alcohol and prepare to be transported to planet Justice!!

I wouldn't pick this up if you only have a boom box, there is a lot of transient sub-bass that needs real woofers (12"+) to do it justice.

Like many of you, I was extremely disapointed with Daft Punk's Human after all. I have been looking for a band that has their same flavor with something new mixed in.....This, ladies and gentelmen, is it.

Justice's Cross has mixed the best parts of the 70s (lovely orchestral strings) the 80s(think robots and synthisizers) and the beats of the early 90s with the bass of the late 90s and turned it into a materpeice. Now, i know the 70s and 80s don't sound like cool-times BUT somehow Justice has managed to clean it up. THe whole thing will leave you electronically satisfied, for sure.

If the opening seconds of Justice's debut album, " ," don't tell you a thing about what you're in store for, you aren't listening. The mudded brass come marching in like they are coming to destroy, and in a way they are. Justice is a dance/electronica group, to be sure, but to label them as such is travesty in and of itself. Like that imperial death march, Justice is here to destroy. In this case, they have come to demolish your preconceived notions about what dance music is and what it can be. Now, until recently I have avidly campaigned against the genre which I feel is cluttered with mundane "artists" who rely on bad samples and horrendous loops to captivate a somewhat dimwitted audience. My opinion is slowly starting to change as I am introduced to artists who are challenging this perception. Justice is one of them.

From the opening track to the very last second of "," I found myself, not only captivated, but amazed, entertained, and energized. Justice comes off as a bull charging towards its victim, with so much momentum and energy that attempting to slow it down would be a fruitless endeavor. Their songs are constantly changing, never relying on a single loop or phrase for too long. And these songs are not lite, easy-listening electronica songs either. They're harsh and brash, with the mids turned up too high for comfort. It's not your average dance album, it is a revelation!

"Let There Be Light" begins with a near-unlistenable melody, but adds in drums, a thumping bassline, and so many cuts and glitches that you'll be in love with it before you know it. It concludes with an absolutely awesome composition that harmonizes synths with synths in a way that sounds like it'd be better suited for the closing credits of a Super Mario Bros. game than a dance record. "D.A.N.C.E." is one of the few songs on " " with actual vocals, and while I found them a bit childish and annoying at first, I was shocked to find the song stuck in my head hours after I first encountered. The song sounds like the Jackson 5 on methamphetamines, if only for the lyrics, "Do the D.A.N.C.E., stick to the B.E.A.T." The disco-esque strings and sing-along quality of the song make the song a sure-fire hit, which is probably why it is the album's first single.

Elsewhere on the album, there's the cut-filled "New Jack," the completely overpowering, yet satisfying "Phantom Pt. I" (and it's more audience friendly second part), and the 100% guilty pleasure "The Party." The latter features such terrible rap-lines as "Let's get drunk and freaky-fied," and if you actually find yourself liking it, then you may want to see if pigs grew wings. It's the one low point on an otherwise flawless album.

The best part about "" is the fact that it never gets boring, an attribute clearly made possible by the group's insistence on keeping the songs fresh around every corner and their refusal to use one loop or riff for any extended period of time. The quality of the songs is through the roof, and the genres touched upon in each song are too numerous to mention. While "D.A.N.C.E." is clearly your crowd-pleaser, songs like "Stress" (which envokes serious Requiem for a Dream soundtrack memories) and "Waters of Nazareth" are designed for the sole purpose of making you nod your head in approval while simultaneously scratching it, thinking "What the heck am I listening to?" " " is an achievement in electronic music that should be listened to by fans and naysayers of the genre alike. Finding a true definition for the music contained on this album is impossible, so I'll just call it this: amazing!

Recommended for fans of electronic music and anyone who wants to experience shock and awe firsthand.

Key Tracks:
1. "Let There Be Light"
2. "D.A.N.C.E."
3. "Phantom Pt. I"
4. "DVNO"
5. "Stress"

7 out of 10 Stars

If your thinkn of purchasing this album because of the tracks played on pandora, do it! The album isn't very long but is exactly what i expected and a bit funky. Great music to blast while driving, if you truely love electronic music

This album sounds a lot like of Daft Punk.
It's quite a perfect mix of homework, discovery and human after all.
Actually this is much better than the recent work of daft punk.
Almost every track is a hit.
It's not easy listening - it will take you 2-3 listening through to start getting addicted.
A bit on the "dark" side, not typical souless dance music.
After that you will love it.
A MUST BUY for every electronic music amateur!!!

I can't deny not being impressed by the majority of the tracks on this album. I'm extremely purist when it comes to most dance music but Justice managed to wow me. While they're clearly heavily influenced by their fellow Frenchmen Daft Punk it doesn't prohibit them from creating their own unique sound. Their tracks are layered with funky beats and are guaranteed to get househeads on the dance floor. Here are my track ratings;

1. Genesis 10/10
2. Let There Be Light (album version) 10/10
3. D.A.N.C.E. [Album Version] 5/10
4. Newjack 10/10
5. Phantom 10/10
6. Phantom pt. II 10/10
7. Valentine 5/10
8. Tthhee Ppaarrttyy 4/10
9. Dvno 3:56 8/10
10. Stress 4:58 7/10
11. Waters Of Nazareth (album version) 10/10
12. One Minute To Midnight 10/10

This album by "the other" French dance duo is not to be missed. While not as ground breaking as most of Daft Punk's work it's definitely respectable in its own right. Give it a listen and hopefully you'll be as impressed as I was.

I heard this CD while browsing through an indie CD store. The distinctive distortion had me asking the clerk if it was the new Daft Punk CD. In response he handed me "Cross" by Justice. Seeing the giant cross on front of the CD, and track titles like "Genesis" and "Waters of Nazareth" made me think it was some sort of Christian Rock, so I put it back on the rack (nothing against Christians, it's just that Christian Rock isn't my thing). Over the next 20 minutes while hunting through the bins, I was able to give Justice a good listen. It sounded so good that ended up grabbing the CD on the way to the counter.

This is one of the best electro-dance CD's that I've heard in a long time. Some other reviews written here disagree, but this does remind me of some of my favorite mid-to-late 90's albums like "Exit Planet Dust", "Dead Cities", and "Homework". Justice's "Cross" album is not on the same level as those masterpieces; but in the current desert of good electronic music in the late 00's, it is certainly is a breath of fresh air.

The music flows from track to track in a very smooth manner. There are great beats and they use noise and distortion in a blissful way. Some of the songs slow down a little too much for a good dance flow, but those songs make it a great CD to have on while relaxing at home or for listening to in the car.

There is one drawback. I hate the track "Tthhee Ppaarrttyy". It is the latest rip-off of "Supersonic" by J. J. Fad ("Fergalicious", "Wind It Up", etc.). Whether or not his track is tongue-in-cheek, I can't tell. Still, that's what my FF button is for.

That aside, this is a great album with some clever samples. I think my favorite is their sample off the odd Booji Boy intro "We're All Devo" by DEVO on the track "Stress". It's a very strange (and obscure) sample to use, but they really make it work. It was a nice moment that added a cherry to the top of this very enjoyable album - especially as a DEVO fan. Pick this up if you want to hear one of the best and most listenable dance albums to come out in a long time.

II get recommendations from the Amazon computer as to what CDs I might like and the Cross album by Justice has appeared several times. Well, that's probably because I have bought up a bunch of Deadmau5 and Daft Punk recordings which are lumped into the same Electrohouse microgenre. But that's OK. If someone has put it into that same category, I might indeed like it and after several appearances on my list I broke down and bought it.

First, what's with all the religious stuff? Why the cross and song titles like Genesis, Let There Be Light and Waters of Nazareth? It's offputting! I have a dislike of Christian popular music and these things slowed my purchase down by at least three or four months. I can't see anything in the music or the lyrics (what there is of them) that is overtly Christian in any way, but why the religious symbolism?

In any case, the music is rather interesting but the quality, from my listening point of view, is quite uneven. Some of the tunes catch me up in a hurry and others have me waiting around for them to finally end. Perhaps this unevenness is just an artifact of their first recording and the later CDs will improve. Certainly some of the individual songs are good enough to win or be nominated for awards. I'm going to wait a while for a judgement on this electronica duo. Right now, I'd say their music is interesting and enjoyable, but uneven.

Gary Peterson

I remember the time I went to Justice's performance about 3 years ago, and that was the first time ever I listened to songs by Justice. They performed at a mid-size, electro club in Seoul, Korea, and I believe that there were more than 300 people at the club that night to listen to Justice performing and to have some fun! They basically played songs from their first album "Cross." I had to buy their album the very next day of the performance because both their performance and songs were so good that I couldn't get them out of my mind.

All songs in this album in general have great melody lines, which are so good that almost every song can be a big hit, and I am not exacerbating. Also, it is really amazing how they composed in ways to blend all those noisy sounds, hooks, and melodies. It's just they did it so well, and especially if one considers the fact that this album was their debut album, everyone should feel the same or at least give them some acknowledgement. Justice used lots of dirty, noisy sounds in the album other than addictive melody lines. Talking about techniques used in the album, I can tell that Justice uses multiple layers and clouds in their compositions, and such layering multiple chunks of sounds to make up rhythms and essentially the music gives very complex, yet rich sounds. In addition, it's a bit obvious, but still it's worth pointing out they used synthesizers. Unfortunately, my knowledge in computer music is not at the level where I can tell which types of synthesizers were used by hearing songs. Yet, I am very inspired by this album in that it kind of showed me how synthesizers can be used in different ways and what kind of sounds one can generate with synthesizers. For example, a track called "Stress" almost seems to be made of sounds generated only by synthesizer. Moreover, I did a short research and confirmed that Justice used a technique called microsampling. Microsampling is a technique of sampling and rearranging very small pieces of other songs into a new form where they cannot be recognized. Such technique was used in "Genesis." While most of the tracks in the album only include computer generated tunes, tracks such as "D.A.N.C.E.," "The Party," and "DVNO" include lyrics. One last technique I was able to catch is a technique that is very commonly used when DJs make mix-tapes. Justice ended each track with the beginning beat of the next track, so tracks can sound somehow connected.

It may be just me, but I think it's very interesting how the songs in the album are titled and ordered and how they make sense as if they make up a story line. Many reviews and comments I read online about Justice and their albums talked about how Justice focuses only on "having fun." However, I have to disagree. When I listened to all tracks in order without cutting off in the middle, I felt something, which I'd never felt before listening to individual tracks separately. I wasn't really able to put it in words quite directly but felt like this album was not a collection of unrelated, individual tracks but rather one song. Although it is true that Justice intended to connect songs with the beat connecting technique mentioned before, I once thought there might be something Justice wanted to say. Only if I had known Justice and had listened to their songs before I met them in a restroom at a club back in 3 years ago, I would definitely have asked them to find out what message they tried to give.

Being one of the mainstream electronic music artists, Justice may not be considered as much experimenting with computer music as scholarly electronic musicians because they are probably more interested in making accessible and club friendly songs, which people can enjoy and have fun with them. However, what Justice can do with music and their great songs definitely have something to contribute to the development of computer music.