Justice: Waters Of Nazareth

‘Heavy metal disco’ may be a label that causes switch-off but wait a minute, this is the same Justice from Justice vs. Simian’s “Never Be Alone” — yes, even three years after it was released, still THE song of the summer, I know. But this is what happens when you take hard electro one step further — actually it’s so gritty it tastes delicious. The title track, “Waters of Nazareth” is full of organ melody, slightly fuzzed out on the low end, and then undercut by a crunching, heavily distorted bass; and sure, it’s no “Never Be Alone”, but enough to ignite a dancefloor in 2006, surely. Two re-edits of the main track, one by the group and one by alt-DJ du jour Erol Alkan, don’t really add much to the original concept here, just re-twist the order or intensity of the crunchy distortion: you only need to hear these if you’re likely to obsess about which different version you heard last Saturday night at that trendy LES bar. But the EP hides another small discovery: “Let There Be Light” is labeled as a “demo” (what that means for a dance track I’m not exactly sure); the outlook’s constant, dirty above all, but towards the end it all cuts out for a while and we bask in a soft-synth-fueled euphoria-trip, before starting it all up again. A great headphone dance track. Look out for the long player, when it drops: sure to set the downtown scene atwitter.