Justice – Audio, Video, Disco (2011) [Ed Banger] // Grade: C+

In 2008, it was weird to watch thousands of American festival-goers — kids who had only moments before been watching Vampire Weekend and Hot Chip, who had all but ignored Amon Tobin way out there on another stage — watch what amounted to a couple DJs. It was weird to see San Francisco’s Treasure Island explode when Justice took the decks; even weirder to watch the sweaty, neon mess of humanity stay rapt — not just interested, but moving; not just moving, but freaking the fuck out — for well beyond an hour. These were the early days of America’s pseudo-mainstream love affair with dance music and DJ culture. Justice, for all anyone knew back then, was the future.

I don’t need to tell you how the atmosphere’s changed. How in the years since Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé released their 2007 debut Cross, there’s been an electronic revolution; how college campuses now prefer dubstep to Dave Matthews, club nights to keggers. I also don’t need to tell you how Justice had a hell of a mountain to climb, releasing their sophomore record in this altered landscape. You have to wonder: Could Cross hold the same sway in America now that it did back then? It went hard, but maybe not hard enough. Not anymore.

But Justice haven’t made another Cross. They also haven’t made some post-dubstep anthem or French house revival; they haven’t gone harder or more aggressive, at least not in any quantifiable way. They’ve made what Busy P calls Stadium Disco. For all intents and purposes: An electronic arena-rock record.

And if it’s not the greatest thing you’ve ever heard, at least it’s not totally god-awful. Audio, Video, Disco is equal parts Boston, Giorgio Moroder, Queen and Guilty Gear X: An album that looks backward to bitcrushed video game music as much as it does classic rock anthems. The stadium strut of “On’n’on” and “Horsepower;” the “Born to Be Wild” vibe of “New Lands” and Freddie Mercury vocals on “Ohio;” the beautifully intricate, if ren-festy, “Canon (Primo)” — so much of Audio attempts to go beyond the build, drop, build, drop expectation of popular dance music. It’s witty and energetic, as well-constructed as it is silly, and arguably unlike anywhere Justice has been before.

Trouble is, we’ve been here before. Underground culture especially has gone once, twice, three times through the arena-rock obsession. We’ve loved and hated and re-loved the 80s 8-bit video game vibe. We’ve probably even heard people talk about doing shit like this, and to Justice’s credit: They actually did it. Audio, Video, Disco is about as far as any one band can go without becoming straight-up parody; though the tracks border on hokey, with all those digitized riffs and stomps, they’re at least reverent of the music they’re referencing. But if Cross is the duo’s yardstick for both production and songwriting success — if both it and Daft Punk captivated so much of 2007 simply by sounding unlike anything on the mainstream horizon — then Audio, Video, Disco has a lot of explaining to do. This is, for better or worse, no longer the future; it’s just a strange step sideways for the duo. And only time (plus another round of festivals in this latest DJ-obsessed environment) will tell if that’s enough.

- Rue Sauvage