New Rave

About the New Rave genre

The term itself started as a cheeky nod to New Wave. Joe Daniel of Angular Recording Corporation coined it to promote early Klaxons shows, though Klaxons would distance themselves from the label soon after. NME picked it up and ran with it, applying the banner to a loose collective of contemporary bands operating in similar sonic territory. What tied them together wasn't a single formula but a shared appetite for velocity and collision: uptempo dance rhythms meeting punk's directness and aggression, often with shouts or rapped vocals cutting through synth layers.

The sound pulls from disparate sources. Post-punk revival bands brought the polished indie rock element, while electroclash and electro house provided electronic texture and movement. There's also clear lineage to Grebo's stylistic grab-bag approach and that revivalist energy looking back to Baggy's psychedelic aesthetics and rave culture. Bands like Does It Offend You, Yeah?, New York Pony Club, and Shitdisco populated the scene, each finding their own angle. Hadouken! took a particularly distinctive path, fusing indie instrumentation with grime influences in what they termed grindie, pushing the new rave template into unexpected territory. The result was music built for dancefloors but rooted in indie DIY ethos and punk's refusal to polish away rough edges.