Justice

JUSTICE

When Justice first unleashed their debut single “Waters of Nazareth” nearly 20 years ago, their grimy, black-leather blend of heavy metal imagery, French filter disco, and 70s gothic soundtrack psychedelia was unlike anything else. Even after storming the charts with their crossover hit “D.A.N.C.E.,” winning two Grammys, and influencing some of the biggest artists on the planet, the duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay never assimilated into the pop world, focusing instead on blazing a path of uncompromising and occasionally esoteric experimentation that has made them outliers in an ever more risk-averse industry.

But times–and listeners–have changed. “Indie sleaze” is having a revival, bringing a new generation to the duo’s early, era-defining hits, genre barriers have vanished, and dance music lovers have begun to look for something more satisfying than mass-produced pop-EDM or jackhammer techno. The world has finally caught up to Justice, and they’re ready for it with the most fully realized album of their career.

Hyperdrama, the band’s fourth LP, is classic Justice from the jump. The lead track “Neverender” aims for widescreen transcendence with filtered disco drums, stuttering synths, and a euphoric hook—sung by Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker—spiked with a hint of melancholy ache. 

From there, the duo takes listeners on a euphoria-inducing journey through sounds that are familiar to Justice fans and influences that have been bubbling up through their music for years, touching down across a field of influences from French touch to space jazz to sci-fi film scores, often shifting from one to another as each track unfurls along its own singular logic. Across the album there is a recurring shift from darkness to light. “It’s as though we had a small button on our sound desk to carry us from one sonic universe to the other,” explains the band. “It’s the same musical world, only illuminated from a different angle.” 

“We think the album feels cinematic at moments,” they continue. “Making music to generate images and tickle your imagination a bit is maybe the main thing we’re trying to do.” Each track occupies its own fleshed-out world. “Generator” uses gabber and hardcore techno sounds to evoke 90s rave music and the techno thrillers it scored. The rubbery electro-funk psych-pop of “Saturnine” features avant-soul icon Miguel leading the listener into a paranoid wonderland. “One Night/All Night,” on the other hand, brings Parker back to rocket the track into cosmic disco transcendence.  

Hyperdrama is Justice’s most ambitious and essential album yet. Shot through with a throbbing disco funk core, its heart is on the dance floor, but it was created for a type of listening that was once common and has now become vanishingly rare: the whole album, front to back, played on the best headphones or speakers you can find in order to fully appreciate its sprawling soundscapes. “When we started making music together, it was always to make albums,” says the band. “We still make albums for the people that are gonna listen to them from start to end. We never think in terms of singles, because we have no idea what a single is, or what a hit is.” 

Augé and de Rosnay began work on Hyperdrama at the luxuriously outfitted studio in de Rosnay’s home just a week before the COVID lockdown came down. After that initial delay, the pair continued to craft the album at a patient pace, spending three and a half years off and on recording at de Rosnay’s home studio and in studios in LA and London where they traveled to work with guest vocalists ranging from Parker and Thundercat to up-and-coming UK twin duo the Flints. Two of the most exacting ears in modern music—who have refined an arena-sized sound at festivals like Coachella, Lollapalooza, Glastonbury, and Primavera—de Rosnay and Augé meticulously worked each sonic element, playing nearly every instrument themselves, captured on an array of vintage gear, often recording, chopping, and remixing tracks to create their own samples. 

Just like “Waters of Nazareth” two decades ago, Hyperdrama sounds like nothing else in the world. Full of stratospheric emotions and sublime sonics, it’s a LP-length statement against mass-produced, disposable art. Wrapped in elegantly psychedelic artwork by designer Thomas Jumin depicting the “mechanico-organic vessel” that’s part of the pair’s sci-fi vision, Hyperdrama is a testament to the increasingly uncommon idea that albums—and art in general—deserve time, dedication, and close attention from creator and consumer alike.

Watch the official video for ‘One Night/All Night starring Tame Impala’

‘Hyperdrama’, the new album by Justice will be released 26th April via Ed Banger Records / Because Music. New singles ‘One Night/All Night starring Tame Impala’ and ‘Generator’ are out now.

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