Blowin' up in '09

The Japanese Popstars

Who: In case their names didn’t give it away, Gareth “Galo” Donoghue, Gary Curran and Declan “Decky Hedrock” McLaughlin are Irish, not Japanese. Their massive, old-school anthems attracted the attention last year of everyone in the British Isles from BBC Radio tastemaker Pete Tong to DJ Magazine, which named them the Best Breakthrough Producers of 2008.

What: The Popstars engineer nearly all of their tracks for big festivals and peak-hour club moments. Tracks like “Rise of Ulysses” and the aptly named “Total Distorted Mayhem” crib in equal measure from the classic ‘90s big beat of the Chemical Brothers and the fuzzed-out techno-rock of Justice, then push everything into full-on bananas mode with gigantic builds and breakdowns that would make Tiësto blush. They’re also capable of pretty, trancey moments like the warm synth bath that is “B.C.T.T.,” but mostly, they just want to make the kids jump up and down like lunatics—and they’re frighteningly good at it.

Most like to blow up: It takes balls to name a track “Face Melter,” but this big-room anthem lives up to the name, with a monstrous, buzzy synth riff that will soundtrack as many sweaty dance floors this summer as Justice’s “Waters of Nazareth” did a few years back.—Andy Hermann