Justice

French electro duo Justice has shaken up the dance establishment—first with a punky remix of Simian’s “Never Be Alone”; then with the punishing EP Waters of Nazareth. The result: leather jackets on the dance floor and grown-ups running for the hills.

Former indie rockers Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay were fairly unschooled in dance music when they started cutting their influential tracks under the name Justice. A techno producer–like fascination with abstraction comes from their shared experience as a live rhythm section, and listening to music from French film soundtracks and new wave renegades. They’ve only recently acquired their dance knowledge. When they enter Daft Punk territory it’s with a similar M.O.—aggressively sampling disco, as they do on “New Jack.” However, for those who found Daft Punk’s last rough-hewn, full-length impotent, the unpronounceable † has come to redeem you.

When we blogged a few months back that Justice’s set in Miami reminded us of mid-’80s metal acts like Judas Priest, we were on to something. The tunes have an aggressive tactile feel, as if they were meant to move mountains, not individual bodies. While disco has the effect of a gentle massage, Justice tracks are like continuous kicks in a bruised, blue-jeaned ass.

But as explosive as its sonics are, it’s also moody. “Valentine” is a virtual update on “A Man and a Woman;” the magnificent “D.A.N.C.E.” is a nursery rhyme colliding with R&B cliché. The useless but interesting “Stress” is louder than a terror alert and more random than a death metal band’s first rehearsal. Naysayers struggle to point out that many of Justice’s production tricks are nothing new. But though it rarely uses vocals—Uffie guests on the awkward “Party”—Justice writes songs. The closer “One Minute to Midnight” has  durable, recognizable melodies beneath the analog noise. Even head-bangers like a pretty tune.—John Dugan