Justice Review - "On 'n On"

The collaborative duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay known as Justice has gained a lot of good critical attention since the release of their debut album in 2007. In October of last year however they released their second album “Audio, Video, Disco”. “On ‘n On” is the newest single from that album, and it’s a scorcher.

It starts of with a slow beat and some captivating lyrics that immediately hint of the theoretical musical love child of Daft Punk and Supertramp. After a couple of lines the rhythm picks up with more lively drums and the time-tested winning combination of synth and strings to create the main musical melody. The effect of this is tremendous as the bass and synth are in the left speaker while the strings occupy the right, creating a veritable aura around lyrics and drums placed in the centre. All the while the lyrics continue with a groovy rhythm until the synth-strings combo culminates their build up with a catchy tune that makes for a nice instrumental chorus.

This whole process repeats again with more great lyrics like “Someday the grapes will be wine, and someday you will be mine, and so the story goes on ‘n on…” until a retro flute melody (think the beginning of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”) carries us into a mellow break down. Here the volume of the drums unexpectedly drop out under the familiar synth rhythm and a massively sustained “On ‘n On...”. Then at just the right time the drums come back in force with the strings back to compliment the synth once more. If at this point you are not at least tapping your foot, then in the immortal words of Billy Connolly “Look into yourself”.

From here there is one more quick shot of lyrics almost left on their own before an insanely powerful bass driven set of quick fire notes punctuated by strikes of synth bring us to a final modulated cymbal hit to close.

Justice, who have already gained much critical acclaim not only in France and Europe but also in the US, have clearly done it again. This is a masterful demonstration of both restraint and eccentricity in electronic music. Nothing is repeated more than needed while excellent melodies are never left unfulfilled or ignored. They have also avoided a major shortcoming of a lot of electronic music by writing some grippingly weird lyrics. Every line of lyrics carries the sentiment of love to last forever in a new and interesting way. The meaning is clear; love has been here since the beginning and will be here at the end. The chorus then seems to be asking a woman to essentially “love me when you’re ready, because this love will always be here”. If the combination of a deep groove, great melodies, and fantastic lyrics doesn’t make you want to buy the album, then nothing will.