A glorious sonic light show
Electro House duo Justice has finally dropped their new album Woman WorldWide. This album is a series of studio perfected live recordings of previously released material capturing the duo’s best moments from their huge WWW tour. These tracks are meticulously mixed and produced, and while not very cutting edge or experimental, these tracks are a ton of fun and brimming with care free vibes.
Pulling off performative electronic music live can be a tricky prospect, but Justice make it look easy. The opener “Safe and Sound” is a rework off their last album Woman; densely layered synths and basslines dance over a funky house beat. This track is glitzy, opulent and while formulaic, a fun energetic introduction. “Dance” and “Cannon x Love SOS” continue the funky grooves and energetic synth sequences but don’t really add anything new to the mix. Yet as a dance album, the duo does a fine job keeping things moving and changing instrumentally. Dramatic rises are well executed, and the blissful explosions of energy can’t help to keep one’s toes tapping.
“Genesis x Phantom” is a wonderful change in pace and instrumentation, featuring growling and glitchy almost dubstep-flavored synth passaged over funky basslines and abrasive laser zaps. This track almost feels like an ultra-modern version of “Thriller.” “Heavy Metal x DVNO” is another dark flavored banger of a track, featuring a repeating and menacing clavinet synth lead and sputtering hi-hats. This is probably the most interesting track melodically, and hearing the subtle changes and modulation being made to the synths brings life to the track, making it more than just another electro house joint.
The vocals leave a little to be desired and while not a critical part of the experience, “Love SOS,” “Alakazam Fire” and a few other cuts feature washed out, hard to hear vocals with some questionable effects chains added to them. A vocoded vocal passage might be interesting here and there, but when it’s buried in the mix it tends to add mud to the other layers of the track. “Chorus” speeds up the pace to a frantic step to the point where it feels like Justice trying to make hardstyle, and “Stop” is Justice in slow motion. “Randy” brings things back up to speed and has excellent progression and structure. The cowbell sounds great over synth laser beams and grinding guitar-like lead melodies.
Justice do their best packing their amazing live show into an album, and for the most part they succeed. Woman Worldwide is mindless fun from start to finish and while more suited for the dance floor than for deep listening, Woman Worldwide is a masterclass groovy dance music. The album is a few tracks longer than need be, but the duo is always changing it up and bringing interesting ideas to a formulaic genre, making for a high intensity, entertaining listen all the way through.
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