Justin Bieber

Justice

It’s been just over a year since Bieber released his worst album. He’s returned with his best.

Created when he was locked in and feeling down, Justice sees Bieber loosen up – and it’s a relief, because, as hesitant as he is to be a popstar, he plays the role so well.

Sixteen tracks of feathery, mostly midtempo bedroom jams set off a ways downstream from the sweet candyfloss of his teen years and the giddy, electrified bangers of the Purpose era.

While Changes was dialed into its R&B grooves to a fault, Justice is more interested in expanding Bieber’s reach. There’s a deceptive level of texture and variety here—Bieber stakes out an agreeable middle ground between warm familiarity and bold diversion.

Justice is one of Bieber's steadiest releases, among the easiest to play from start to finish.

Justice is more likely to be remembered as another exhibit proving Justin Bieber is a pop music force rather than its conceptual rhetoric.

A work of subtle progression, its evangelical appeal is dimmed by the familiarity of those colossal singles. As fuel for the continuation of Justin Bieber’s mission, however, there’s much here to reaffirm your faith.

Although Bieber created a decent body of work, it's hard to get past that the sentiments of the overall message is skewed by the lack of effort towards creating music that addresses any sort of justice or lack thereof.

With more co-writers than the Bible, no wonder there’s little to fault in the precision-tooled pop on offer. It was just a mistake to think that he was going to have something significant to say this time.

‘Justice’ breaks no ground – certainly not politically, nor musically, though its poppier lean and talented team of collaborators will win back some listeners lost to ‘Changes’.

Justice spins far more like an ode to his “hot wife” Hailey than it does a reckoning with any type of injustice, and it certainly doesn’t grapple in any way with a world rife with prominent racial struggles.