Justice – Hyperdrama Review

Electronic music from France comes with a seal of consistent quality. Daft Punk and Justice are just the tip of a worryingly large iceberg of quality music. There is an expectation. Every artist to enter into this genre from the red, white and blue-flagged nation has a standard to uphold. Those who have stuck around it long enough, like Justice, are hellbent on maintaining this quality. An urgency to their work can be heard. What a treat for those who want more noise and glitching, wilder styles. Hyperdrama, the fourth album from Justice if you discount their remixes collection, holds firm to the critical joy they felt on their debut almost two decades ago. Why does the first track sound a little off? Tame Impala. Scratch it off and move on to pastures new, as Hyperdrama grows into a better project after it. 

Heavier follow-up Generator is where it is at. Moodier and linked with industrialized disco moods, this is likely the closest Justice gets to a stylish and familiar sound. Everything else is collaboration, considered moves to new genres and a chance to open the band up with a bold sound. A tremendous surge of everything electronic pop was, is, and will be can be heard on Generator and from there the calmer waters of the genre are bathed in. Hyperdrama has nothing too hyperactive about it in these earlier moments but the warm rush makes way for the likes of Afterimage. An intensity is held not by the tempo but in the scope of emotions heard throughout. Their synth style is decent and has the well-paced likes of One Night/All Night to contend with, and ultimately Justice enjoys the spoils of bass grooves and well-timed, pendulum-swinging like synths.  

Those weighted sounds overtake any need for lyrical consistencies. It is why Tame Impala struggles to make a splash on any of his collaborative efforts here. Justice at their best is when they are removed from delicate wordplay and instead have a chance to grow their instrumental structure. Smooth efforts throughout which, while lacking an emotional punch, do provide the slick grooves necessary for lighter elements of the synth joys throughout. Justice sounds best without collaboration. It may be a shock considering the sheer quality found alongside Rimon or Miguel, but Incognito and Dear Alan remain some of the better songs found on this one. Moody bits of brash work, a sincere joy. Driving music. There you go. Whittle it down to that. Ratatat with a higher class of energy.  

Explorer may be the best bit of work the band has made aside from Generator. Never finding a groove, a skip to keep the tempo in check and a listener always questioning the motive of a band believing in their wilder tones. Improvisational, experimental and, at times, sensational. Hyperdrama implodes in its final few tracks, a wonderful alignment of everything Justice stands for, and what they can do for the genre. Synth is in safe hands with their wilder choices. It is truly insane what can be done with technology in the right hands. Justice gives us something to hold onto. A sense of hope and genuine, depthful wonder spreads across Muscle Memory and into Saturnine. Those experiences are large, intense presentations of synth as a force of consistent quality, as it has been since its invention.