Cross

Justice debut album has made a hoopla

Dance music of the recent days has been not too varied as if it has been asleep longing for some young minds destined to make a revolution. Such minds have appeared in 2003 in the face of a French electro house duo Justice. Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay first work was the remix of a rock song Never Be Alone performed by an indie band Simian, which won at the contest of remixes held by a Paris college radio station and became a springboard for the further success. The duo got a contract with Ed Banger Records and after making some more remixes for famous performers such as Britney Spears and Fatboy Slim released their first single Waters Of Nazareth. Then some new remixes were made for no less famous acts such as Franz Ferdinand and Mr. Oizo. Finally this July the guys' debut album Cross is released. The main thing that differs Justice from other dance projects is the masterly command of sound, and due to that album Cross is almost an hour of tense concentrated electronic music creating air vibrations that are practically tangible. That is exactly why the creations of Justice will be heard in all the world's nightclubs of, and its debut album has made a real hoopla.

Cross is mainly an instrumental collection

The most part of Cross consists of instrumental compositions with only a few in which one can hear a text sung. The record opens with an epic song Genesis, reminding of a soundtrack to a fantastic movie and gradually shifts to track Let There Be Light, which is at first tense and impetuous with singular sound effects and then light and optimistic. A memorable melody of the first single off the album D.A.N.C.E., given by a vocal sample, greatly combines with quite a hard beat, and tracks Phantom pt. I and Phantom pt. II are the examples of pure electronics, with various tunes consequently replacing one another. A calmer composition Valentine is remarkable for chiming thready sounds, which add to its romantic mood, while The Party is refined with the rapping of MC Uffie, a performer also signed to Ed Banger Records. One of the best tunes on Cross is on track Stress whose title is fully justified. Penetrating rasp of the synths against the background of hard oppressing beat weakens only by the end of the composition, giving way to the keyboards instilling some hope of healing. Work due to which Justice became recognized as independent authors, Waters Of Nazareth, has inserted itself greatly into the general track line up on Cross, and final composition One Minute To Midnight closes the record with another unearthly and unforgettable melody.

The music of flawless quality

No live show of the duo can do without a huge shining cross that is a kind of Justice's calling card. This many-faceted symbol is obviously the embodiment of that mystic feeling that the audience is experiencing being totally submerged into the fantastic music. In many respects Justice are inspired by rock, and this tendency can be traced on Cross either, especially on most hard tracks. On the whole, although the album is absolutely homogeneous stylistically, the variety of music on it is sure to surprise many. Yet despite its unique talent Justice is often compared to another French duo Daft Punk, which was popular in the 1990s and changed the whole idea of house-music. Undoubtedly these parallels are not groundless, but still both the duos are original enough, so there is no way that Justice can be blamed for plagiarism. Besides, there are many more other performers among those playing electronic music, for example, Jean Michele Jare, and each of them has contributed to its development. Anyhow today Justice remains the author of the music of flawless quality although we are speaking of the debut album only. After listening to Cross there is no more doubt whether the duo has a lot of new ideas in store, and one can only guess what its next creation is going to be like.