Justice

Justice are a French electronic music duo made up of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay, among the standard-bearers of French Touch. The duo's label is the celebrated Ed Banger Records, run by Pedro Winter. Justice are known for incorporating a strong rock influence into both their music and their image. Their style is indeed shaped by rock and heavy metal, combining bass lines with the sound of compressed, distorted synthesizers. The duo also makes use of samples drawn from other musical genres.

Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay have gone by the name Justice since 2003, after meeting at a party in Paris and realizing they wanted to head in the same direction. Their debut album, "†", was released in June 2007 to widespread critical and commercial success. The record is a distillation of past avant-gardes, of daydreams - ground down, vulgarized, made digestible and easy to swallow for everyone. Humanly automated and pushed to the extreme. Homogenized reworkings, a strong cocktail, yet one accessible to all. For everyone: for those who grew up on the dancefloor and for those who'd throw a bomb onto the floor for every hand raised in time with the kick drum. For those who go to Gods of Metal and for those who go to raves. For those who still buy records and for the iPod generation. The influence of Daft Punk can be traced in every groove of the album, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album and reached number 15 on Pitchfork's list of the 50 best albums of 2007 and number 18 on Blender's "25 Best Albums of 2007". The duo's remix of MGMT's "Electric Feel" would go on to win the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical, in 2009.

In September 2009, it was announced that Justice would move to WMG/Atlantic's new label, Elektra Records. The band began working on their second album in mid-2010. The first single, titled "Civilization", was released on March 28, 2011. The band released their second album, "Audio, Video, Disco", on October 24, 2011, marking a decisive change of direction. Gone are the electro bounces and the Guy-Manuel-style synths of the past. What remains is the restless altar-boy halo of the jauntier side of french touch. Full stop. The rest is total escape - escape from the dancefloor, escape from trends. The cross has been carried away, far from the city lights and indie consumerism. Now it lies out in the fields. Justice shift into reverse at the second bend and head back home - back to dig up their Jethro Tull records and the elfin prog of Yes. "Audio, Video, Disco" is overflowing with love for the prog imagery of the early Seventies. Xavier and Gaspard blend progressive keyboards and dancefloor-leaning variations like drunk chefs, wading from the all-too-familiar to the pathetic with the carefree abandon of a kid messing about on his laptop, wrecking his dad's old records.

The album would be followed two years later by the live record "Access All Arenas".

Their third album, "Woman", was released on November 18, 2016. It features 15 tracks; many of them are entirely new studio remixes of songs from the duo's earlier work, but drawing inspiration from their live performances. The record earned the duo a Grammy Award in 2019 for Best Electronic/Dance Album.

In 2024, Justice returned with their new full-length "Hyperdrama", surrounded by a long list of collaborators, including Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. The album's thirteen tracks are perhaps the most representative summary yet of the Justice spirit, a journey in which the many souls that have fed the band's history intertwine through a songwriting care that surpasses most of their previous work. What's missing, it's true, are truly irresistible bangers - no small gap, given that the project's fortunes have so far rested on the strength of its killer tracks. But anyone who has learned, year after year, to appreciate the nuances of the French duo's style - moving past the early stereotype of them as mere "capable understudies" to Daft Punk and instead embracing their lovable grandiosity - will find plenty to enjoy here.