- A star-studded comeback that almost touches on the French duo's past greatness.
- A lot has changed in electronic music in the eight years since Justice's last LP. Since the soaring heights of their now immortalised debut album, people have wondered whether Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé would assume the throne of Paris's other powerhouse electro duo. And yet, even with a vacancy at the top of the French electronic court, that transfer of power hasn't been as smooth as you might have predicted in 2007. After shortchanging themselves somewhat with 2011's Audio, Video, Disco and 2016's Woman, their recent material took on fresh life through polished, expanded and more exciting tour iterations. The duo's habit of eclipsing their studio output with epic, cherished live versions set up an interestingly skewed expectation for their fourth album: even if it doesn't set the world alight on record, it probably will over festival season. When returning to the stage at Coachella, you could already hear that metamorphosis underway. This time is different though—the studio version of their fourth and latest album, Hyperdrama, is huge straight out of the box.
Hyperdrama splices together every genre Justice have ever tried their hands at. The music darts between disco, jazz, hard funk, prog rock, techno, R&B, diced-up hip-hop and more—often within the same song—while nodding to grassroots French touch acts like DJ Falcon and Alan Braxe (who gets an outright hat-tip on "Dear Alan"). On Hyperdrama they're synthesising sounds with a wider palette of moods and textures, and a heightened sense of excitement. The synths on these tracks pulsate with intent, while the organic instrumentation (what the duo dub, in another wink toward a robotic realm beyond, "human music") is lush and evocative. Hyperdrama is more impactful than Woman, but not quite as ostentatiously in-your-face as Audio, Video, Disco. The duo sound better for it.
The sensual brass section on "Moonlight Rendez-vous" wafts over a punchy kick like smoke billowing from a candle. The sultry tension comes from the anticipation that it might descend into madness at any moment, only for the track to remain docile—and beautiful. "Muscle Memory" is an inclement storm of glitzy synth arpeggios contrasted with glitchy stabs and bass hits that strike like lightning. It comes together into something that could soundtrack an old Italian horror film. Elsewhere, growling chords on the cataclysmic kosmische-meets-synthwave of "Explorer" stride forward determinedly into a haunted spoken verse from Connan Mockasin.
The duo open the door to a number of other Justice-worthy performances by crossover pop stars. Speaking to Flood about their collaboration choices, de Rosnay said: "They represent something that's very precious to us right now in the world of music: autonomy. It's digging your own path regardless of being trendy." That said, the banner names aren't exactly defying conventional popularity. Thundercat, Miguel and Tame Impala are seamlessly incorporated into these productions without either side of the relationship compromising. Miguel's hushed delivery on "Saturnine" brings a magisterial air, while volatile synths flicker like an open fire beneath his unruffled falsetto. Kevin Parker shows up twice on the record, with both features reaching the peak of his dance floor work to date. "Neverender" is silky disco accented by Parker's signature psychedelic cadence, whereas he sounds both seductive and transcendent on "One Night/All Night," a hypnotic middle ground between sweaty funk and gritty club slammers.
You might justifiably scan the tracklist and the Radio 1 A-list adoption of "One Night/All Night," then ask: is this Justice making a play for the pop charts? Well, yes and no. If anything, the normalisation of Justice's itchy template shows how seamlessly the duo entered the bloodstream of popular dance music. Most tracks collapse inwards or erupt outwards with a moment's notice, new elements sprinkled in on the fly just when you thought you were satisfied with the current stack. The sporadic style is clearest on "Incognito," where—following a glossy, cinematic intro with a timeworn sample of Idris Muhammad's "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This"—the track explodes into vintage French electro. This one could have been on Cross, and while that album is halfway to classic status today, it was considered pretty daring in 2007. A switch-up halfway sees the track take off from the dance floor with all the thrust of a fighter jet, with chopped choral vocals from Cream's "White Room" the nearest armrests to cling onto. My only gripe is how short it is—cutting that gorgeous vocal snippet at the end so abruptly is almost unforgivable.
In spite of the pressure of a would-be comeback, the duo's pre-release press tour paints a picture of them having been rather relaxed during the interim. In the same interview, de Rosnay told Flood, "we started this album knowing we could spend however long we wanted on it." Augé even found the time to release his debut solo album in 2021 while the duo chiselled out their vision. Still, Hyperdrama hardly sounds like a product of leisure. With its maximalist, synth-heavy direction and tactful homages to all eras of dance music, Hyperdrama is a work of passion, both grand and seductive. The LP isn't reinventing the wheel, but it's not a throwback either. It's the closest they've come to matching Cross, proof that they can evolve in tandem with the modern era without losing their grip on the idiosyncratic brand of pop retro-futurism that made them so beloved in the first place. And knowing Justice, they're still probably saving extra horsepower for the road anyway.
Tracklist01. Neverender
02. Generator
03. Afterimage
04. One Night/All Night
05. Dear Alan
06. Incognito
07. Mannequin Love
08. Moonlight Rendez-vous
09. Explorer
10. Muscle Memory
11. Harpy Dream
12. Saturnine
13. The End