Nero

Teenage friends Daniel Stephens and Joe Ray spent their adolescence listening to jungle and garage music and making electronic beats in their bedrooms, before graduating to raves at the legendary North London club Fabric. As dubstep started to take over the capital's dance scene in the mid-2000s, Nero's reputation grew when early singles "This Way" and "Act Like You Know" and their remix of The Streets' "Blinded by the Lights" became underground favourites. Evolving into a more spectacular live act when vocalist Alana Watson joined the project in 2007, they signed to Chase & Status' independent label MTA and scored the hits "Me & You," "Guilt" and the huge UK Number 1 "Promises" (which Skrillex re-mixed and went on to win a Grammy Award). Filled with mechanical effects, hypnotic house rhythms, 1980s synths and screeching guitars, debut Welcome Reality (2011) drew comparisons with Daft Punk, Magnetic Man and Justice and went on to top the British album charts. The full-length follow-up Between II Worlds arrived in 2015 with a break before their next release: Into the Unknown, which marked their return in 2024.