Justice – Audio, Video, Disco

The four years taken to produce a follow-up to 2007’s † inevitably raises suspicions that Justice have been experiencing Difficult Second Album syndrome; and on first listen, Audio, Video, Disco does little to allay them. The French duo’s familiar crunching electro beats and chunky, stadium rock-influenced riffs remain here, but the ecstatic disco of the early material has been supplanted by more indulgent, wayward structures.

Given their adulation of 70s rock, it’s no surprise: Justice are following a similar hedonism-to-conceptualism trajectory pursued by The Who, Led Zeppelin, and countless other cited influences.  Nonetheless, that distinctively cartoonish and hard-edged techno sound ensures that Audio, Video, Disco rewards repeat listens. Justice are essentially attempting to shoehorn the playful pomposity and melodic complexity of their heroes into a club format (see, for instance, the descending sampled guitar soloing of Brainvision), and while that ultimately renders this a less immediately gripping record than †, it’s still a bold development of that album’s aesthetic.