Signs of the cross

CD of the week

JUSTICE
Ed Banger
****

Welcome to the disco at the end of the universe. Parisian graphic designers turned DJs and producers Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Auge have been in situ here since they turned UK indie band Simian's mundane Never Be Alone into an extraordinary banger called We Are Your Friends and triggered a whole series of sounds and occurrences. Whether it was Simian themselves morphing into electro gurriers Simian Mobile Disco, or a spate of blog-house copycats attempting to replicate the pair's nonchalantly explosive soundclashes, Justice's impact upon arrival is not to be underestimated. When you hear a track like Waters of Nazareth, you can understand the Justice effect on their peers. It's dark, daring and, perhaps because of how raw and rough it sounds compared to the more pristinely produced tracks of a similar ilk, madly alluring.

This, then, was to become the Justice template: rock-hard dancefloor candy with nothing left to the imagination. Lick one and you're hooked. On their debut album, called probably to confuse and annoy sub-editors everywhere, there's a track called Stress, and it's Justice's money shot. Taut, thrilling and strung-out, it's as if Bernard Herrmann decided to make an acid house track just for the hell of it while he was filling in time between soundtracking The Birds and Psycho. Distorted, dense and claustrophobic, you'll hear its screaming, strung-out symphony in your nightmares. But if Stress is a particularly high watermark for de Rosnay and Auge, there's plenty more in this fascinating wham-bam of funk, disco, acid house, rave and hip-hop to make you move. The opening, Genesis, has an intriguing rumble that leads you to some very interesting places, Phantom is another track throbbing with strings a-plucking with menace and D.A.N.C.E. sounds like the Jackson Five, albeit a Jackson Five swapping Motown for a different schoolyard. All those "dance music is dead" obituaries from the last few years are suddenly looking a mite silly. www.myspace.com/etjusticepourtous    JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: Stress, Genesis, Waters Of Nazareth