If the band’s name conjures up images of cute, small Japanese girls wearing school uniforms singing bubblegum pop music, think again. This simplistically titled release, ‘EP1’, from Northern Ireland’s The Japanese Popstars has a lot more to offer than it initially lets on.

Despite high-profile support for Klaxons and Hadouken!, the trio have less in common with such bands dominating the British new rave scene and the two songs included here, ‘Delboy’s Revenge’ and ‘Sample Whore’, are a blinding statement of intent putting the act sonically in the same league as other huge electronic live acts like Underworld and The Chemical Brothers. This is electronic music created for arenas, festivals and stadiums.

Winning the Best Live Act award at the Irish Dance Music Awards was simply official confirmation of what their fans, who include renowned DJs Steve Lamacq, Erol Alkan, 2manydjs and Eddy Temple Morris, already knew. ‘Delboy’s Revenge’ has little to do with the character from the British comedy, ‘Only Fools and Horses’, and more to do with pounding electronic beats which take less than a minute to kick in and the pace of the track never drops in its entirety lasting just over six minutes. The beat samples used give nods to Tomcraft’s ‘Loneliness’ and New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ and these are furiously combined to devastating effect.Expect this track to appear in numerous and wide-ranging club DJs’ arsenals.

‘Sample Whore’ is equally as unforgiving. The song introduction’s beats echoing back and forth lead up to an intense fusion of powerful output before dropping back and then reappearing interspersed with an erotic female voice oohing and aahing around two minutes into the song on its way to the track’s climax. This half of the release, lasting over eight minutes, introduces beats spanning the electronic spectrum in both intensity and pitch throughout its duration creating what is destined to become an electronic classic.

Having confirmed appearances at this summer’s massively influential Glastonbury Festival in England and Ireland’s largest annual music festival, Oxygen, The Japanese Popstars are well on their way to becoming electronic music’s latest sensation with ‘EP1’.