Let's get something out of the way: prog. As in, it's impossible to discuss Justice's sophomore album, Audio, Video, Disco without noting just how thoroughly the Parisian duo has adopted the brash sounds of late-1970s progressive rock. The referents-- Yes for turbulent guitar lines, Goblin for sly italo beats, Queen for unapologetic bombast-- jump off the plastic, announcing that Justice will not re-hash the ornery, clubby obelisks that defined †. Their new direction is precocious, brave, and surprising even if it damns them by placing emphasis on qualities-- arrangement, fidelity, patience-- that Justice lack.
Though it sparked a still-running debate about the duo's credentials, †, by accessing unexplored levels of sleaze and cheese, actually fit into dance music's long, proud tradition of not giving a fuck. That they did this in a rock context-- leather jackets; big live show; loud, terrible mastering-- seemed at the time reverent of peak-era Daft Punk but in retrospect appears prescient: Deadmau5 and Skrillex headline festivals, hellbent on teasing out the most seizure-inducing mix of lighting and music possible. In 2011 anyone looking to beef about "real" dance music stares into a smaller barrel filled with bigger fish.
In this way, AVD is a natural progression for Justice. Their M.O. is bold irreverence, and they've found multiple ways to express it. Still, it's hard not to admire their choice: It threatens to alienate their core audience while endearing them to a group of fans unlikely to take up their cause (or realize they exist). Prog-rock has long been championed by experimental music fans for its complexity and ambition-- it was outsider art that made the mistake of actually selling records.
Prog remains a mostly unclaimed orphan of rock history, and while certain corners of the indie establishment-- Fiery Furnaces, Sufjan Stevens, Dirty Projectors-- have adopted its structure and imagination, they've left the flute solos behind. (Dance acts like Aeroplane and Wolfram have mined this territory to mixed effect.) Justice take the opposite tack: AVD is composed of short, simple tracks stuffed with stairway-climbing solos, ascendant male vocalists, and starry-skied bridges. The duo has called AVD a "daylight" album, presumably in contrast with †'s nocturnal vibe. But just like a low-lit club can mask flaws, Justice's full-bore wall-of-dance bulldozed some of their compositional shortcomings. AVD is brighter and more diffuse (though, sadly, its recording style is no more dynamic), but the light shining through does Justice no favors.
It's easy to admire progressive rock for its immersion and commitment to concept, as well as its musical prowess and scope. These are, sadly, the elements Justice strip away. Instead, they employ prog's sounds in short, distracting bursts, filling AVD with melodies that are curious but difficult to remember or enjoy. They do this in the style they know how-- with hoary, space-eating electronics-- which suggests supreme digital craftsmanship but doesn't do the listener any favors. The guitars sounds are uniformly shrill, the bass flatulent, the rhythms rudimentary.
They employ singers more frequently than on †: male voices, pinched and bleating. I won't do you the disservice of examining their lyrics (they're hardly the point, for Justice or for us), but suffice to say they don't add much. AVD's finest moment is the title track, in which a voice is digitally manipulated into a current of high-strung, winsome tunefulness. "Helix", their most blatant disco move, is robotically funky, a reminder of what Justice are capable of when they commit fully to Daft pyrotechnics.
The majority of AVD, though, is cheese-rock signifiers dressed up as dance music. Once you get over the fact that the band got a little Cerrone in your "Kashmir" ("On'n'on") or spiked your Moroder with Toto ("Horsepower") there's little reason to come back to AVD. Immersing yourself in the record is an exercise in liking Justice as a concept more while liking their actual output less. There's too much space between AVD and actual prog to accept that Justice are committed to this direction. They spent all their daring on concept, with little to spare for execution. Even for a duo as image-conscious and savvy as these guys, there is little style in their reduction.
