Justice, 2024.
or the most important post of the year
When I was 16, I gifted a CD of A Cross the Universe to my high school crush. I remember handing it to her in the hallway. Nervously saying, “this is for you,” thinking the whole time about the contents of the jewel case. This was Justice’s first live album, released with a tour film of the same name. This particular copy contained a letter asking her to prom. I wouldn’t have even tried this without the encouragement of friends, all of whom already had dates. At the time, I believed that she was interested in a different guy in the friend group. But I thought if I performed a gesture of mutual interest, at least we’d have something to talk about at the party. I knew that she was a fan of Justice although we never engaged in depth about why “D.A.N.C.E.” was such an inescapable tune.
A Cross the Universe released in the fall of 2008, a little over a year since their debut LP, Cross. In 2007, I couldn’t walk into an Urban Outfitters or American Apparel or Buffalo Exchange without hearing Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights” or Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.” It was an era when genre discussion felt important and while Cross was ostensibly a disco-infused electronic album with a fuzz pedal attached, the French duo somehow sounded more serious, more dangerous than the DJs headlining Electric Daisy Carnival. Cross was like Daft Punk, if Daft Punk produced a Motörhead album. Justice’s reception was aided by the style of the band members Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé. The two were photographed in vintage Metallica shirts, L.A. Raiders hats, skinny black jeans, a cigarette dangling from their lips. In early interviews, Xavier did most of the talking while Gaspard hid behind aviator glasses, attractively lethargic. It was a simple look that cut through the noise of a generally bad time for fashion. The clashing neon, big print pattern, deep-v, colored leggings, post-1960s-mod, shutter shade, thrift store shotgun blast, 1980s roller rink stylings looked garish then and I don’t envy future generations’ attempts to revisit the era. I do not have nostalgia for indie sleaze clothing; however, the music was pretty good.
When iTunes meant something to music culture, I held a certain pride in my most played songs. I torrented a digital version of Cross, but I bought A Cross the Universe. Twice. With the version that I didn’t give away, I imported the CD into iTunes and synced the library with my iPod nano. Unfortunately, I can’t fact check that music library anymore but I can safely say that I listened to A Cross the Universe over a hundred times. My enthusiasm was aided by seeing Justice perform at the 2008 Treasure Island Music Festival (RIP) just a few months prior to the live album release. I couldn’t get enough. I watched the A Cross the Universe documentary, directed by Romain Gavras and SO-ME, at home in shock and awe (2008 was also the year of the Soulwax/2manydj’s documentary Part of the Weekend Never Dies, but that’s a different story). Every time I watched the movie’s final moments as Justice concludes their encore set and Xavier is hoisted up by the audience and the melody of Michel Polnareff’s “Love Me, Please Love Me” kicks in, I could cry. I learned how to play Polnareff’s melody on piano before ever taking a French class. The movie’s handheld camcorder footage and Gavras' immersive direction is something I wished to emulate in my own photography and student films.
Once I was living in New York, I bought tickets to see Justice at Terminal 5 as soon they were on sale. Their second album Audio, Video, Disco was released in October 2011 and they performed in March 2012. My only memory of the concert was the swell of bodies, tossing me like waves. Audio, Video, Disco was a more stadium rock, slow-crescendo album than Cross. Guitar and drums are at the forefront. Track “Brainvision” is one long guitar solo. “New Lands” is the frenchmen in their Van Halen era. If fans were expecting Cross Deux they were sure to be disappointed. Justice recorded the live version, Access All Arenas, in 2nd century Arena of Nîmes. Music for gladiators. Personally, that album’s defining moment was the single “Civilization,” which featured in an Adidas advertisement directed by Gavras. No other ad has made me want to consume a brand’s apparel more than Adidas’ “All In.” I first watched it in the Columbia Science and Engineering library, probably at some ungodly hour in the morning. It took all my strength to not break the library stillness and scream, “Justice is back!”
On April 26, 2024, Justice released their fourth album Hyperdrama. Even before it came out, my anticipation was at a record high. Justice was live-streaming their Coachella set and I stayed up until 1am tuning in on YouTube. Sitting in bed, I pumped my arms when the baseline for “Mannequin Love” kicked in. I scanned the video to see how rowdy the desert audience was. I did not see any pits opening up, thankfully. My only hesitation with going to see Justice for the first time in over ten years was whether I would be pinballed around the venue. But their sound has eased off the heavy metal.
Justice’s penultimate album, Woman, released in 2016, added more prog-rock melodies and disco string sections by way of The Doobie Brothers. They still displayed a taste for the baroque with the track “Heavy Metal,” a staccato arpeggiating march, that ends with a synth line that sounds like an alien abduction. “Love S.O.S.”, “Safe and Sound”, “Alakazam”, “Chorus” have proven to be live show staples. My personal favorite on the album, “Pleasure,” received a live mix on Woman Worldwide but has since been out of the setlist.
My point is, that perhaps Justice belongs in the canon of bands people claim need to be seen live, dude. The 2024 Coachella set was some of the best dance music I’ve heard in years. It was joyous and anthemic. Even the gabber-esque mix of “Afterimage” managed to come across with a smile and not moshing frenzy. When tickets went on sale for their Brooklyn Navy Yard show I set an alarm to click the link as fast as possible. With all the ticket drama surrounding modern day concerts I was prepared to be ripped off. Still, I knew the alternative was not something I could live down. Somehow I got in and out of the ticketing system before the tiered pricing reached triple digits. I had one ticket to Justice on July 25.
Hyperdrama Review
Before Hyperdrama released I listened to a bootleg rip of the Coachella set for about a week straight. Finally, on April 26th I could listen to the first Justice album in six years. That morning I had a dentist’s appointment. I would put 60% of the blame for being late to that appointment on me trying to listen to as much as the album as possible before having to leave the apartment. I had rinsed the album by lunch. I told anyone who would listen that Hyperdrama is some of their best work yet.
Justice albums typically open with a delayed thunderclap to get your attention. Something boomy and dramatic with moments of silence to draw in the listener. “Neverender” featuring Tame Impala is an immediate groovy, jump up and down anthem, “NevaaNNDAAAAaaa”. Kevin Parker provides some supple harmonies over a juicy Justice bass and funk-guitar licks. The track almost feels like a prank, gaining the audience’s trust, setting them at ease before the explosion of “Generator.” Ahhh…here is that familiar “Phantom Pt. II” era bassline and screaming synths. It’s a relentless track with a midway break that crashes into synth stabs that sound like the cousin of Altern 8’s classic “Frequency.” The intensity eases up as the strings take over the melody, followed by a bass, followed by piano. Justice are now building something quite soothing amidst the first two minutes of aggression. There’s a good minute in which the dance rhythm has completely fallen out, but the final minute brings the sirens back, shouting at your eardrums all the way into the pulsating three note loop of “Afterimage.” With all the reverb it feels like you're listening to the track in an empty club. In a good way. RIMON’s vocals seem to be crooning from under a single spotlight to me specifically. “We don’t have to say so. There’s beauty in just letting go.” What is this a Kaskade song from 2004? I don’t care. It hits.
“One Night/All Night” was the first single off the album, the first new Justice song since 2015. It has a classic balance of disco on one side, hard techno on the other. Almost like a trance song, dialed back a dozen bpm. It gives way to my favorite back to back tracks on the album “Dear Alan” and “Incognito”. The former opens with a plucking computer melody that borders on chiptune. This gradually opens up to an incredibly crisp hand-clapping, two-stepping, bass loop with some perfectly layered, breathy chords straight off a Casio keyboard. It’s not a coincidence the song sounds like a forgotten 1990s French House classic. “Dear Alan” refers to French produce Alan Braxe who was in a little group called Stardust with Thomas Bangalter (ever heard of him!). It’s also the longest track on the album and feels like it should have an even longer 9 minute version. Two-thirds in, the melody dissolves back into the chiptune, gradually adding in these clanging effects onto the 8-bit pattern until it gushes into this rich cacophony played over that opening bassline. The sirens give way to the yacht rock cymbal crashing at the top of “Incognito”. I’m going to guess that Justice are Zildjian fellas. What follows is a relentless drum and synth pattern that sounds like it was sampled from a machine shop. On the high end is a barely recognizable vocal sample repeating “DREAM!” The sample plays call and response with an organ/bass flourish on the low end. I don’t know how else to describe this song other than its music to make you run through a wall. The beat is smattered with these piano and bass breaks that feel like changing channels between a police chase and a Chic performance. Go find the “bonus track” version if you really want your socks blown off.
“Incognito” lets you down softly, ending with the first four bars of “Mannequin Love (with the Flints)” before looping into the next track. “Mannequin Love” sets the stage for the back half of the album. The bpms wind down. It’s a bit more synthwave with rainy neon backdrops, less red light room at the afters party. I can’t overstate how good the Coachella version of this song was. The tempo is cranked up perfectly. I booted up the live version during a run and shed a tear. “Moonlight Rendez-vous” leans fully into the cyberpunk soundtrack. A reverby saxophone plays over a slow 808 drum beat. It sounds like the instrumental for a 2014 Weeknd song. Justice keeps this mood going with “Explorer (with Connan Mockasin),” which sounds like chamber music for robots. Mockasin’s vocals give us a brief fairytale of a psychedelic encounter. “Muscle Memory” and “Harpy Dream” complete this cybernetic synth vision that began with Rendez-vous”. The marching synth on “Muscle Memory” recalls some of the infectious constant-building rhythms of Woman. The kind of song to let you gather your breath but not sit down before one final surge.
I haven’t even mentioned the cover art! Hyperdrama continues Justice’s reinterpretations of their cross iconography. This time the cross is a transparent body filled with a neon cyborg anatomy. A brain is tethered to a metallic rib cage with an organic growth developing at the base of the spine. “Harpy Dream” carries an electronic signal out of the dream and into the dancing flames of “Saturnine (with Miguel)”. Miguel is doing what he does best here, creating a yearning vocal, both seductive and vulnerable. More and more I feel like they were listening to 80s disco records when producing this. And finally, “The End (with Thundercat).” This one showcases Thundercat’s falsetto, which really soars when accompanied by those Justice sirens. Appropriately, this one hits with a triumphant closure, “This is the end/And I remember this feeling/Now I can breathe easy.”
Justice is not known for features on their albums. Previous guest vocalists have not been credited in the track title. The feature tracks on Hyperdrama genuinely sound like each artist bringing their sound in concert with Justice’s. I think that’s cool. And I am giddy to hear them freak these tracks over the next year of touring.
A Cross the Universe
On June 10, in a strategic alignment of cultural marketing, Roxy Cinema announced a film series selected by Charli XCX titled “The brat Collection,” in celebration of her upcoming sixth album brat. The collection included Party Monster, Daisies, Velvet Goldmine, Party Girl, To Die For, Project X, and…A Cross the Universe…
Not that anyone needs to hear my opinion on brat, but upon first listen I thought it was probably better suited to being remixed. This sounds like dance pop from 2008, I thought. Easyfun’s production on “Von Dutch” bares a glaring likeness to Bodyrox’s 2006 single “Yeah Yeah.” I didn’t listen closely to the lyrics and put the album down for a while. Charli makes music for the Girls & Gays. But something switched when I started pondering her inclusion of the Justice doc, a movie with a lot of pent up masculine energy. It’s the kind of movie with scenes of prankish hedonism that made me think, “these guys probably don’t believe anybody will watch this.” Similarly, the energy of the late aughts is all over Charli’s album. The club pop and lyrical sincerity are endearing and fun. Anyway, it turned out I was wrong, brat is indeed a very good album. Happy Pride.
Roxy Cinema set the tone for the documentary by screening Charli’s “360” music video followed by a lyric video of the remix featuring Robyn and Young Lean. This was hilariously jarring but proved necessary. My friend Samir tagged along and never heard the song nor knew what Charli XCX looked like. In lieu of the movie being formerly introduced, Charli’s music was a nice teaser for just how loud the movie might be and felt like a green light for the audience groove if the music moved you. A Cross the Universe depicts the DJ tour life as nothing if not a party that goes on a bit too long. The movie follows Justice’s North American tour in 2008. The first voice in the movie is their bus driver, a Sam Elliot type who is competing for the Guinness World Record’s lowest vocal note. This gospel-raised gentlemen also serves as narrator for the band’s journey. The movie begins with him intoning “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…” A reminder of Justice’s early self-mythologizing: the illuminated cross on stage, the story about their favorite book being The Bible, the cultish bomber jackets with the Cross cover stitched on the back.
The tour starts in New York City at Madison Square Garden. The ever-flustered tour manager Bouchon is eagerly awaiting a package at the arena while Gaspard and Xavier finish soundcheck. The package is revealed to contain a bubble wrapped (Chekhov’s) handgun. The show is about to begin. As Gaspard and Xavier go on stage, they kiss, a metal cross sandwiched between their lips. This intimate ritual serves as a blessing for a good set? Superstition? Both? Smash cut to the “DVNO” live remix playing over concert footage. It’s every bit as chaotic and bombastic as I remember. It made me grin from ear to ear. The filmmakers blend the soundboard recording with the onboard camera audio, creating some fantastic low-fidelity clashes that make it feel like your ear is right up against a blownout subwoofer. Layered on all of that is the scream of the young crowds. “I’m not gonna front man, that shit was hard,” reports an audience member after the show. “It was fucking tough this time. I think these guys are the new rock and roll.”
Let’s backtrack to the look of the movie for a moment. As far as I can tell, Gavras shot on something equivalent to a 2006-2008 Sony Handicam. Black is the dominant color: night clubs, leather jackets, black speakers, black guns. But the low-contrast color of the movie gives these shades more of a slate, dark grey aged look. When the strobe lights are really kicking off during concerts the footage begins to degrade and the AVCHD bitrate momentarily plummets. The zoom lens is perfect for the filmmaker’s voyeuristic purposes, enhancing the juvenile gaze of these men and also capturing audience members writhing in ecstasy. The camera’s green night vision illuminates flings with groupies. It’s a perfect example of the eras party photography when crowds weren’t photographing themselves so much as relying on eagle-eyed photographers with point and shoots.
There is a palpable grime to the tour’s pleasures. As they drive through Detroit, their guide lists all the recent gang activities. Somewhere near Utah, the tour bus driver pulls over to help a woman onto the sidewalk. She keeps lying down in front of trucks waiting to be run over. She wants to die. The band goes to a gun range at the urge of Bouchon and comes away with an Osama Bin Laden poster to hang in their bus. A hilarious real estate montage takes place in Los Angeles. They tour 10 million dollar homes with tacky artwork, murmuring to themselves how dirty the pools are. If I didn’t know any better I’d say these Frenchmen are mocking our American way of life.
The band has kept its cross iconography but the deliberation about their religiosity and iconoclasm has quieted. Looking back 16 years, it’s amazing how much images can impress. Their fans appear with cross tattoos, the crowds raise their arms in unison to make a cross gesture. This first tour of justice featured them performing on decks above an illuminated cross, flanked by massive stacks of Marshall amps. The bad boy archetype was amplified by the music video for “Stress”–a faux found-footage video following a group of teenagers terrorizing a French banlieu while wearing jackets emblazoned with the Justice cross. “Justice inspires me,” comments a rainbow outfitted fan. All the pool parties and vodka shots become a blur. During an tv interview in Montreal, the band is sleepy eyed, holding unlit cigarettes and ogling the interviewer. The two barely understanding the French-Canadian. Meanwhile the camera zooms into the interviewer’s ass like Tex Avery’s eyeballs. “Amusez-vous à Montreal,” the cameraman says, “c’est important.”
During a dinner at a restaurant in Denver a waitress spots Bouchon’s gun and calls the cops. Minutes later, this group of French electronic musicians and their production crew are lifting their hands in the air. Fortunately, the band gets away without a delay of schedule. But suddenly things just aren’t going their way. Gaspard takes on a groupie somewhere near Vegas who he brings to a roadside Chapel. The two are wedded as Xavier and crew look on in confusion, pulling from a whisky bottle to get through the night. The next morning, the bride is nowhere to be found. We’re in the final leg of the tour and the mood has spiraled. Sound equipment isn’t working. The monitors are too low. Venues ask permission to light the first few rows of the audience so that the band can see any projectiles being thrown on stage. A drunk Xavier splashes a girl backstage with alcohol and playfully tosses a match at her. The real drama is intermixed with moments that seem too bizarre to be true. Xavier awkwardly singing “Under the Bridge” to a bewildered Anthony Kiedes, a house party filled with cheerleaders, the aforementioned real estate tours in the Hills. Was it truly this glamorous or are they performing the playboy lifestyle?
It comes to a head when a belligerent fan charges toward Xavier before a show. Xavier fends him off by cracking a beer bottle over his head. The fan drops to the pavement, the side of his head clearly bloodied. Venue security asks everyone to “back off” and Xavier is rushed to the backstage bathroom. Xavier’s hand, still split open, is quickly washed off and bandaged by Bouchon. The show must go on. Gaspard and Xavier kiss one final time as the live mix of “Phantom Pt. II” revs up. “Phantom” has never been so rollicking. “We Are Your Friends” remixed over Master of Puppets guitar riffs never sounded so sincere. At this point the movie is pure concert montage edited together across venues. It’s brash and aggressive and cathartic. People crowd surf and security is pulling people off the front row. The camera’s sensor can barely handle the blasting strobes. Before the encore, Bouchon splashes Xavier’s hand with whisky before pushing them back onstage. It didn't take more than this to solidify Justice as edgy role models in my sixteen-year-old mind.
The band is placed in handcuffs as soon as they’re off the stage. They are led in handcuffs to a cop car as astonished fans, high off the show, chant “JUSTICE! JUSTICE!” Bouchon runs behind, incredulous, managing to also get arrested in his rush to save his band. As we see the three being driven away, Michel Polnareff’s “Love Me, Please Love Me” starts in the background. The movie cuts back to the concert’s final moments: the band being hoisted in the air by fans as Polnareff croons in the background. Truly a French exaltation.
The Concert
I left out the best part of the Roxy screening. When I took my seat, another audience member wearing a Nine Inch Nails baseball hat approached and offered me a gift bag. I asked if they worked at Roxy and they said no. The bag contained a homemade movie stub for A Cross The Universe, an “A.C.T.U.” bracelet, a gold paper cross, and a birthday card for Xavier featuring an illustration of him holding a baseball bat. Thank you @sketchmatorial. Is this what it’s like being part of a fanbase? The friend I saw Justice with in 2012 moved to London and the high school friends I went to Treasure Island with live on the other side of the country. My only participation in recent Justice culture was browsing the Reddit page once Hyperdrama was announced. But here I was being handed a homemade bracelet in 2024 like it was San Francisco LoveFest in 2009.
On the day of the concert, I had a little routine planned. Justice was scheduled to take the stage at midnight. After work, I took a nap, heated up some pasta, drank a green tea, had a cigarette, and biked to Brooklyn Storehouse in the Navy Yards. The 5,000 capacity venue sold out and my worst-case scenario was winding up in an overcrowded venue getting pushed around by rowdy fans like it was still 2012. This was not at all the case. There was a real efficiency to security. My first impression of entering the venue was how much space was available. Even moments before the band came out, I never felt swarmed. Closer inspection of the crowd revealed that we’d all grown a bit older, a bit fatter. I saw a pregnant woman and white-haired couples. Washed millennials—my people. Standing near the lighting booth, the sound was immaculate. Despite forgetting to buy a $30 pair of concert earplugs, I woke up the next morning with zero ringing in my ears. The sound was mixed to feel booming in the chest without distorting the speakers. The siren squeals of “Stress” never sounded so urgent. It was hard not to give it up and yell after each transition. I forgot how good Justice is at bringing back vocals or melodies multiple times throughout a live mix. Samir described them as ghosts. For example, the chorus for “Safe and Sound” will play over its original track only to reappear ten minutes later as harmonies on Tame Impala’s vocals for “Neverender” and once more as a climax on the “D.A.N.C.E” remix. The D.A.N.C.E. vocals have remained a setlist staple and incredibly malleable to new tracks. I’ve often wondered if Justice produces songs with one ear listening to see if the melodies can blend with other parts of their catalog. What this means is that over a decade-plus career, the fans have heard “We Are Your Friends” vocals on every tour, but the placement has always changed. I’ll confess to being moved when the Justice vs Simian vocals cried out over “Mannequin Love” and a crowd of thousands all started singing along. Not to preach like a Phish fan, but I do think Justice is at their best in concert. Despite never breaking up, this concert had the feeling of a reunion tour. Perhaps due to the fact that their last show in New York was in 2017 at Panorama Festival.
Concert weekend, the band had a pop-up store plus signing in Manhattan. The signing was said to end at 1 pm, which was fine by me. I'm not sentimental about memorabilia, but I was interested in their “I survived Justice in New York” t-shirt. I arrived around 1:40 pm and stood at the back of a line that wrapped up Ludlow and east on Stanton. Not terrible, I thought. It was a sunny day, I had a book to read. After waiting in line for a little under 90 minutes I was shocked to see Xavier and Gaspard still sitting in the shop. How could I not get a signature now? The NYC Shirts, however, were sold out. “They sold out about 30 minutes ago,” said one of the store clerks. So I bought Hyperdrama on vinyl. But the signing raised a bigger question of fan etiquette: what do I say to them? I said “hello” with a shy smile and placed the record in front of the band. Gaspard signed it first, meanwhile, I looked at Xavier and said the concert sounded amazing. Gaspard looked up and said he liked my shirt. I was wearing a black shirt with an upside-down “23” Chicago Bulls jersey printed on the front. I said, “Thank you, my friend made it custom.” This brief acknowledgment activated my starstruck senses. I didn’t expect this small exchange to reach a level of sartorial conversation. Xavier began signing and my window of opportunity was closing. Without completely stammering, I said, “I wanted to ask, do you guys still tour with Bouchon?” Xavier explained, “No, he hasn’t been with us on the last two tours. But we still visit him in jail.” I laughed, reading humor through his deadpan French delivery. Well, I’m glad they indulged an old fan making a 16-year-old reference. As I left, I wished them a happy tour, it's important.
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By the way, Justice became veritable national heroes at the summer Olympics (23:44).