Win the new Justice album!

Do you like awesome French electronic music that mixes indie, disco, rock, sci-fi funk and pop with chunky, fuzzy basslines and dance hooks you could hang your coat off? Yes? Do you also like FREE STUFF? Of course you do. Well, read on.

The exciting news for those of you that live in Melbourne is that JUSTICE are heading your way! Tickets went on sale today for what will be their only performance in the city. The epic, brand new, live experience will feature all of their hits and tracks from their, frankly, amazing new album, Audio, Video, Disco. The Festival Hall will host this night of French genius on Friday 6th January 2012. For ticket info, click here. You want more good news? It's an all-ages show.

It's sure to sell out, so, if you snooze, you lose. You'd better buy your tickets right now.

Meanwhile, Bobbysix.com has teamed up with Fuzzy to give you the chance to win one of four copies of Justice's new album, Audio, Video, Disco. To stand a chance of getting your hands on one of these bad boys, all you need to do is follow @bobbysix on Twitter and send us a tweet. It can say whatever you like (be nice though, hey?), so long as it has the hashtag #justice

If you don't have Twitter [you should really get in the 21st Century, but] you can simply email info@bobbysix.com instead with the subject "Gimme Justice". Because we're nice, we'll send CDs to anywhere in the world, so this comp is open to EVERYONE. Hooray.

Justice are also hitting up FIELD DAY on New Year's Day. Tickets are on sale now.

Sleigh Bells at Digital, Brighton

Any relatively hard-working music reviewer sees a whole lotta live acts in the course of a year. Some are good, some are not. Almost always, their sets are toooooooo lonnnnng (I'm looking at you through sleepy eyes, Teddy Thompson). Nowadays, I have grown so weary of protracted, self-indulgent, noodly sets that, whenever a band clocks in with something short and snappy, I am instantly won over. Even when seeing a group I love, an hour will do for me.

So take a bow, Brooklyn's noise-popsters Sleigh Bells, for being on and off the stage in little over 30 minutes, during which time they treated the sold-out crowd to a performance that was all about the ENERGY. Digital's excellent sound system was worked to breaking point as Derek E. Miller hacked the shit out of his guitar and singer Alexis Krauss hollered down a mic while bouncing around the stage. Coming across like Klaxons-meets-M.I.A., it was loud with a capital LOUD. Ear-bleeding stuff.

To be honest, the length of the set was hardly surprising, with the band only having one long-player, but the way in which they delivered it was relentless and pretty exciting. Okay, so the amount of laptop backing-track to actual live performing was a little disproportionate, but the adrenaline that the duo exuded made up for it as electro bombs with serious rock elements like Kids, Tell 'Em and Riot Rhythms punched a lively audience hard in each ear.

This wasn't a classic gig, nor one for the purists and a longer set would probably have grown pretty tiresome - there isn't a wealth of variety to Sleigh Bells' output after all - but in terms of energy, they were hard to fault on this cold February night in Brighton.

Words and (quite dodgy) pictures (I couldn't get anywhere near the stage) by Rob Townsend

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - The Golden Year

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool’s success in 2010 has been such that the release of their debut album should have been cause for celebration for the UK electro outfit. However, following the death of singer Charles Haddon at a European music festival in August, The Golden Year instead acts as a sad legacy and marks the end of a three-piece that had really only just got started. After speaking with the late Haddon’s family, the remaining band members decided that releasing the record as scheduled was the correct thing to do.

Opener You Started, with its piano and strings, is an interesting, if slightly misleading, stripped-down introduction. More left turns like this throughout The Golden Year would have been nice but, as the obligatory 80s synths arrive in the next song, it’s pretty much exclusively up-tempo, indie-laden dance from then on. But for a couple of fillers, it’s largely above-average stuff, and is punctuated by the occasional belter like the feel-good indie-dance-pop magnificence of Dance The Way I Feel and the adrenaline rush of Jackson’s Last Stand.

The Golden Year isn’t a brilliant album, but it is a solid debut with more than a couple of glimpses of the potential that Ou Est Le Swimming Pool had. It also shows the charisma and energy that Haddon brought as a vocalist. His was certainly a talent lost well before his time and the fact that The Golden Year gives off such an unabashed sense of joy and optimism makes it all the more difficult to listen to in light of the all-too-recent tragedy that hangs over it like a cloud.

New Young Pony Club - The Optimist

Taking New Wave influences and turning them into posturing New Rave disco was undeniably fun but, despite boasting some shimmering songs and a gutsy frontwoman in Ty Bulmer, New Young Pony Club always came across as poorer cousins to the likes of Klaxons. Three years on, with New Rave being little but a memory, one might wonder how relevant the arrival of a sophomore album from NYPC is. However, while Klaxons interminably stutter over the release of their follow-up record, it turns out that NYPC have grown up and changed with the times.

Self-produced, self-funded and self-released, The Optimist leaves aside the smutty winks, nudges and the shiny, throwaway disco of Fantastic Playroom in favour of a tighter, darker sound with lyrics that show genuine emotional depth. Lost a Girl opens the album with Bulmer taking a deep breath before bursting into a quick-fire verse that shows a newfound vulnerability to her lyrics, “I’m making you smile/Why am I doing that?” Some great hooks, crescendos and big choruses later, and it’s enough to make the once delicious Ice Cream seem flimsy and banal in comparison. This strong start continues with Chaos, as Bulmer’s deliberate drone morphs into another catchy chorus over handclaps.

As the album ebbs and flows, the occasional brooding moments - like the electro-ballad, Stone - counterbalance its dancey edge, giving things a well-rounded feel. The Optimist is the sound of a band shedding its glossy skin and showing what’s inside. Put simply, this is a really strong comeback from New Young Pony Club.