#405 Justice - Audio, Video, Disco

New Justice!

Its slippery why this album isn't any good.

Cross was a great, unashamedly rockist album, taking the lessons Daft Punk learned about repetition, texture and swerves to macro levels. Where techno-techno seduces you to move, Cross was a gun in your back, demanding you dance.

Here, the rock sound is even more obvious, with more vocals and a lot more actual guitars. In fact, they've shot right past rock into prog rock: the concepts are bigger, the structures fancier, the instrumentation more adventurous. That all sounds like a good thing if you like prog (and I do), but if your whole schtick is to move shake asses and thrash heads, you're taking a big chance by sounding like music that, traditionally, is more for stroking bears and furrowing brows. The pace is inexcusably ponderous on songs like Parade and Ohio and the vocals are weird, thin and superfluous. The whole thing feels drained out and amateurish compared to the blunt force of their debut.

The long bright spot is Canon, which finds a way to use prog for good instead of neutrality, channeling the tension, organs and buzzsaw guitar of Genesis's The Knife. But mostly, no, this isn't a way I'm interested in seeing Justice taking things, with ambition that doesn't lead anywhere it's music should be going 2.5/5

You might like this if: There's a tough sweet spot here. Do you want noisy, maximalist techno, but want it to sometimes mellow out and stretch and meander? Here's your best bet.