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 Justice's Cross Apr 20, 2010
Justice's debut album, (Cross), launched a new genre of digitally composed music when it came out in 2007. The Parisian duo of Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Auge stumbled upon their unknown musical talents in the early 2000s. They are best known for their image and style of music: a mix of strong rock and indie influence with distorted synths and hard cut bass lines. This style is excitingly innovative, sometimes sounding of equal parts funk, disco, acid house distortions, and hip-hop rhythms. When recording in their production studio, the duo uses several recording interfaces and software sequencers; when performing live, they are surrounded by two columns of 9 Marshall amps running Ableton on their MacBook Pros. Justice is an out-of-this-world down-to-earth team of expert composers that shows us that amateur techniques can make it big. The album as a whole shows a biblical connotation, hence the album title and some track names, yet each track on the album displays its own technique of digital composition.
The first track on the album, "Genesis," playing along with the biblical connotation shows the beginning of existence. Possibly the most widely known song on the album, it has been sampled many times in the media, appearing in video games, songs, movies and being featured in television shows and commercials. What many people do not realize is that the song itself includes several samples in the form of "microsamples" - not long enough to distinguish where they came from, even to the original artist. Throughout the album, about 400 different tracks were microsampled and used in its tracks. In "Genesis" especially are samples of Slipknot (just tiny bits of voices), Queen, and the handclap from 50 Cent's "In Da Club."
"Waters of Nazareth" evokes the group's original idea of making an opera-disco album. A first listen does not make it sound like disco, but if you can forget the hard bass lines and distortions, it sounds like a basic disco rhythm. The song resonates a sort of evil texture and, when blasted, would cause every cell in your body to shake in different directions.
"Let There Be Light" plays off a simple drum and bass beat with use of modulation frequency. The song starts with four variations of pitches of a simple frequency beat and explodes with more frequency variations and bass line.
"Valentine" incorporates sweet melody with sounds of grains or sand in the background.
"Newjack" integrates samples of different words and voices to create new words and sounds as such "Duridah Dura Duridah".
"The Party", "DVNO", and "D.A.N.C.E." are the only three tracks that include lyrics along with the music. "DVNO" sounds like a futuristic robotic jam and incorporates a little bit of phasing and a catchy tune. "The Party" incorporates actual samples of voices to embellish the singing. "D.A.N.C.E." is one of a kind (one of the more attractive songs) and was created as a tribute to Michael Jackson and the lyrics is the only one to use a children's singalong.
"Stress", "Phantom", and "Phantom II" are more of the wordless tunes and punctuate heavier bass lines with crazy amounts of synth. "Stress" has string beats piercing the rhythm while the two Phantoms have string with a nice build-up, climax, and drop of the beat.
On a last note, each individual track functions on its own, however the whole album itself functions as a whole. Typical of French tradition, Justice cleverly ends each track with the beginning beat of the next track without making it seem awkward. The whole album may be divided into tracks but in reality it is one song, one entity, and one story.
Justice has been compared to Daft Punk a lot as many people criticize that Justice adopted their sound from Daft Punk. Although some of the synths or software instruments used sound similar, Justice has a different persona and technique to their beat. All I have to say is that Justice does not use the same beat and repeat it for 7 minutes. I would also note that without daft Punk, the genre would not be existent and Justice would not have the street credit that it currently possesses.
This 13-track album was a commercial success and Justice is constantly growing in popularity. The album ranges in its sound, from video game music to old synth beats and pop dance music as Auge and de Rosnay show off their sampling and synth talents. (Cross) proves that Justice knows to how sequence music and avoid boredom, permanently rearranging the face of electronic music.
 A Must Have Album for the Electronic Lover Apr 18, 2010
Justice's Cross album is in a way reminiscent of Daft Punk and other Electronic/Dance music of the type. It is certainly worth a listen if not owning.
Works Like a Charm Feb 13, 2010
I received a nice looking disc case (albeit covered in fingerprints) with a perfectly working, clean disc inside. Great buy, and fingerprints don't matter. ;)
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Purchase that will do you justice! Dec 12, 2009
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
The evolution of disco music Nov 16, 2009
This is hard 21st-century disco. A lot of people compare Justice to Daft Punk, but don't buy this expecting to hear anything like Daft Punk. This sound is completely different. It's harder and heavier. The highlights for me are "Genesis" and "Phantom" (pts. I & II). "D.A.N.C.E." and "DVNO" are a lot more approachable for those who are looking for a more mainstream sound. "Stress" is the only track that I hit the skip button on. Other than that, the CD plays very well all the way through. One slight disappointment for me is the Uffie track "The Party". I really like "Hot Chick" by Uffie, but her contribution here is nowhere near as good. She can do better.
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