Justice
A Cross The Universe
Release Date: Dec 9, 2008
Genre(s): Electronic
Record label: Atlantic
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Album Review: A Cross The Universe by Justice
Very Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
If you think that releasing a live album just one long player into a career might constitute hubris, consider that the average Justice show features a stack of no fewer than 18 Marshall amps. Lurking between the gigantic towers are two men – Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé – who never fail to look utterly nonchalant when faced with the carnage that tends to surround them. The DVD portion of A Cross the Universe does its best to shatter the French duo’s guarded on-stage personas.
Based on rating 7/10
Designed to perpetuate their image as arena metal rock stars of the electro age, Justice's second release, A Cross the Universe, exposes the French duo's ability to whip a live audience to a frenzy by using a massive stack of Marshalls to amplify their laptops. The soundboard recording of their 2008 San Francisco performance, loaded with crowd noise, proves that you don't need a wealth of material, live instruments, or even microphones to put on an explosive show -- just an über-successful album with killer beats, a beast of a sound system, and a venue packed with people who like to D. A.
Based on rating 3/5
What could be less interesting than live footage of two French-fried electro fuds bobbing their heads from behind a massive stack of amps for an hour? Not much. That's probably why the abysmal Justice concert recording is relegated to the audio disc (also hiding evidence of whether or not Gaspard Auge's MIDI controller is actually plugged in), while the DVD in this package contains the much more engaging behind-the-scenes tour documentary covering 20 days of bleary-eyed debauchery. It's as if they're trying to prove that guitars aren't a requirement for the groupie-groping douchebag behaviour thought to be the exclusive domain of moronic rock stars.