Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2010

Courtesy of Surface Noise/Warner ©

As suggested by the exclamation point that punctuates their name, Hadouken! make off-your-tits, hands-in-the-air rave-rock meant to be felt in the solar plexus at 4am in a sweaty club—not listened to in a desk chair in front of a computer. Imagine taking the stadium nu metal of a Limp Bizkit anthem, and then updating it for the ’00s (’10s, is it?) with a dash of grime, electro and dance-punk, and you’ve got a song like “Turn the Lights Out.” It’s lowest-common-denominator music for the masses (Hadouken’s MySpace has almost 10 million plays), and apparently the expression of an already passé new musical fad, “grindie,” that mixes UK grime with indie-rock. Headed up by singer-producer James Smith, the quintet even have their own Fergie in the form of Smith’s babe-alicious girlfriend Alice Spooner. They bring For the Masses, the follow-up to their acclaimed breakout debut Music for an Accelerated Culture, to Shibuya O-East on April 6; see concert listings (popular) for details.