Rawstyle

Rawstyle, or raw hardstyle, is the darker branch of Dutch hardstyle that emerged around 2011, stripping the genre's euphoric melody back to distorted gated kicks, aggressive screeches, sparse atmospheres and hardcore-derived menace. Centred on labels such as #Minus Is More# and #End of Line# and producers *Radical Redemption*, *Warface* and *E-Force*, it plays at roughly 150 BPM and anchors the hardest stages of festivals including Defqon.1, Loudness and Supremacy. Its producers are judged above all on kick design, and its audience treats melodic compromise as betrayal of the style's founding reaction.