NU GEN

There’s a new wave of artists tearing genres to shreds and reshaping alt culture for the next generation. Meet nu gen: the scene everyone is talking about

WORDS: LIZ SCARLETT AND MERLIN ALDERSLADE

Cassyette calls her sound ‘grit pop’

CASSYETTE: PRESS/JAMIE WATERS

The ‘rock is dead’ conversation just won’t die. In this year alone, rapper-gone-rocker Machine Gun Kelly suggested that the genre was in need of a “defibrillator”, while Kiss’s Gene Simmons reasserted his notorious 2014 statement, declaring in a recent interview with Metal Hammer, “I stand by my words: rock is dead.” Most metalheads would baulk at such melodramatic claims, but the truth is that rock’s place on the wider music spectrum is certainly in question; 20 years ago, contemporary metal was shifting millions and dominating the charts. In recent years, heavy music has struggled to make an impact outside of its own bubble.

One movement looking to change that is nu gen - anew generation of musicians who are propelling the genre back into the mainstream, flooding the scene with new sounds that meld together everything from metal and punk to R’n’B. It’s a clash of styles unlike anything we’ve seen before, and it’s being championed not by bands, but by individual singer-songwriters who look like they’ve stumbled straight out of a Hot Topic in 2004.

“This genre is obscene, ruthless and there are no boundaries in lyrical or visual output anymore,” says Mimi Barks, whose self-proclaimed ‘doom trap’ fuses big riffs with hip hop hooks. “You can self-publish and don’t need to please a third party such as a label, publisher or record store to sell your music.”