Justice’s Cross is an album that defines a movement, a movement that isn’t quite sure of its own identity, but just point to this album and you’ll know what it is. Known alternatively as blog house or nu-Rave, Justice blends heavy guitar riffs with dance beats to create a unique fusion of dance and rock.

When I’m telling someone about the band, I invariably wind up calling them “the next Daft Punk,” and that sums it up pretty well. This album is to 2007 what Daft Punk’s debut, Homework, was to 1997. It’s an instant classic filled with pounding instrumentals and a few crossover pop hits in there for good measure.

I saw Kavinsky DJ at Studio B a few months ago and he opened his set with this album’s first track, “Genesis.” A massive keyboard noise begins the album, backed by timpani, sounding like the first emergence of life from the jungle. It’s a disco 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a killer opening. If I was DJing, I couldn’t think of a better opening track than this. When an infectious, but heavy dance beat, comes in to compliment the riff, Justice is born.

“Let There Be Light” keeps things going with another insistent instrumental riff. While the vocal backed songs are more easily memorable, I’ll often find myself humming one of these instrumental songs, and flipping back through the album to confirm that ah yes, that is Justice’s “Let There Be Light.”

The track quiets into a wonderfully 70s keyboard riff which sets the stage for the album’s monster hit, “D.A.N.C.E.” Like a lot of listeners, I heard this track first and was instantly hooked. At the epicenter of the nu-rave movement, Brooklyn’s Studio B, I’ve heard this track spun every time I’ve been there, first after a show in May, at which point I knew the band had arrived.