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Daft Punk, Klaxons,
Simian Mobile Disco
Simian Mobile Disco
Ed Banger Records
Justice: A Cross the Universe
- Electronic
- 2008
- Buy the CD
Reviewed by James B. Eldred
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"
You gotta see them live" is a declaration rarely mentioned when talking about electronic acts. You used to hear it about Prodigy, and you hear it about Daft Punk, but that's about it. Most people don't see the draw in paying 50 bucks to watch one or two guys twiddle knobs, spin records and push buttons. Usually if an electronic act is going to really bring in the masses with a live show, they have to do something special. Prodigy did it by incorporating freakish looking dancers/"singers" into their performances, and Daft Punk do it by constructing a giant neon pyramid and blasting their audiences into submission with an audio/video show so powerful that one day the aliens from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" are going to show up thinking they've found a new mother ship. Justice doesn't have anything like that (aside from a really bright neon cross), so when they perform live they're relying solely on their music to get attention. Luckily for them, their music is freaking incredible and even better when cut up, remixed and re-arranged for a live setting. This is a perfect recording of a perfect performance, capturing all the energy and excitement of what it must be like to see these two crazy Frenchmen perform their unique brand of house-inspired electro live.
A Cross the Universe is as much a remix album of Cross as it is a live album. Nearly every track from Cross is represented in this live set, with the only the mellow "Valentine" wisely getting axed completely ("New Jack" isn't listed, but samples of it are present). Nothing here sounds like it does on the album, with every track getting pumped up to 11 by means of throbbing beats, added samples, hyperactive tempos and gratuitous crescendos designed to drive the audience into a feet-pounding frenzy.
If it was good on Cross, it's better on A Cross the Universe. The two-part "Phantom" is cut into three parts, with parts one and "1.5" coming early on in the set while an epic 11-minute remix of Part 2 serves as a closer before the encore. The international hit "D.A.N.C.E." is also given the multi-part treatment. Part one remixes the song as a slow piano ballad (serving as a great breather after the intensity that preceded it) while Part two explodes into an even more energetic and exciting version of the original.
The song that benefits most from the live remix treatment is "The Party," which is strangely renamed here as "Tthhee Ppaartyy." On the original version guest rapper Uffie's vocals were a little annoying since there was little backing them, this time her vocals are just a small part of the song, with grinding guitars and a crazy breakbeat transforming the formerly sedate disco track into something else entirely.
As the show progresses, it becomes harder to differentiate tracks from one another; "Stress," "We Are Your Friends" and "Waters of Nazareth" all blend together into a psychotic frenzy, with added samples from Klaxons "Gravity's Rainbow" and Rammstein's "Du Hast" adding to the brilliant madness before their previously mentioned Doctor Zhivago-length remix of "Phantom Part 2" blows the roof off the joint. And if that all wasn't enough, they end the encore by playing a remix of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" Elecrometal (or maybe metalectro) is born, and it sounds amazing.
They may not have crazy dancers or a blinding light show, but with A Cross the Universe Justice have proven that neither are necessary. This is one of the greatest live albums of electronic music ever.
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