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Justice | Audio, Video, Disco

Elektra/WEA (2011)
By RYAN REED  |  October 25, 2011
3.5 3.5 Stars

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It takes only a second into "Horsepower," the gurgling, raging first track on Justice's second full-length, to realize these nutso French geniuses are operating on another electronic plane: a kingdom ruled by distorted synth-bass and overblown rhythms, a wonderland of carousel keyboards and unstoppable funkiness. "Bow to the call of the beast," sing the giddy duo (Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay) on "Civilization," and those dudes got it right with that line. Audio, Video, Disco is an absolutely spot-on title for this batch of arena-styled ass-shakers — tunes that journey way past general electro goodness into psychedelic dimensions that, perhaps, exist only in your imagination. The words can be kind of stupid here and there ("Ohio, Tennessee, California, endlessly" goes the hook to the goofy, groovy geography lesson "Ohio"), but no one's coming to this dance party armed with a lyrics sheet. Where their fellow Frenchmen Daft Punk have a proclivity to wander aimlessly, Justice never lose sight of the big picture, aiming to blow your minds and sub-woofers with equal determination. At their best — as on the downright absurdly epic title track, which feels like the theme song to Rocky set on Mars — Justice run circles around the competition, laughing loudly to themselves.
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  Topics: CD Reviews , Music, Video, Disco,  More more >
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