Paul Elstak
Sub Zero Project is a Dutch DJ and music production duo consisting of Thomas Velderman and Nigel Coppen. The project is one of the most prominent representatives of modern hardstyle and is known for combining a powerful rhythmic foundation, abrupt changes in kick-drum character, large-scale melodies, cinematic intros and elements borrowed from other styles of electronic music. Among the duo's most important works are The Project, Our Church, The Game Changer, Darkest Hour (The Clock), The Contagion, Rave Into Space, HALO, Trip To Mars, Renaissance Of Rave, Path Of The Warrior and It Will Be OK.
Sub Zero Project began their professional career while still teenagers and within several years progressed from young producers releasing music through a Dirty Workz sublabel to performances at Defqon.1, Qlimax, Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival and Electric Daisy Carnival. Key stages in their development included the breakthrough track The Project, the Qlimax 2018 anthem The Game Changer, the albums Contagion and Renaissance Of Rave, the official Defqon.1 2023 anthem Path Of The Warrior and a series of conceptual live shows.
Thomas Velderman and Nigel Coppen
The story of Sub Zero Project began when two young Dutch producers met online. Nigel Coppen initially created music under the name Sub Zero, and after meeting Thomas Velderman the musicians decided to work together. The name was expanded to Sub Zero Project, emphasising that it now represented a collaborative project. The duo began developing professionally around 2013–2014, while Dirty Workz lists 2014 as the beginning of their career.
Initially, their music was considerably closer to raw hardstyle than their later releases. Early tracks were characterised by aggressive rhythms, a dark atmosphere and less emphasis on large vocal choruses and emotional melodies. Even at this stage, however, Velderman and Coppen aimed to create their own kick-drum sounds rather than build their music exclusively around techniques already widespread within the genre. This focus on the sound design of the rhythmic section later became one of the defining features of Sub Zero Project.
One of their early officially documented tracks is The End, released in December 2014 on Anarchy — a Dirty Workz sublabel focused on the harder side of hardstyle.
Over the following years came Madman with Atmozfears, Funky Shit, Hit The Funk, Headbanger with Sub Sonik, Meltdown with Devin Wild and other releases. These tracks gradually strengthened Sub Zero Project's reputation within the hardstyle scene, but the real turning point came later, when the duo began combining raw sound with more unusual rhythmic structures and psytrance influences.
The Project and the development of their own sound
In March 2017, Sub Zero Project released The Project. The track became one of the defining works of the early stage of their career. The musicians used characteristic short kick-drum hits reminiscent of psytrance rhythmic techniques, combining them with the tempo, structure and heaviness of hardstyle.
For hardstyle in the mid-2010s, this approach was relatively unusual. At the time, the divide between the more melodic and harder sides of the genre remained fairly clear. Sub Zero Project offered a different model: a track could have a dark, aggressive main section while simultaneously containing a memorable theme and rhythmic ideas borrowed from other forms of electronic music.
The Project was not the first track to use such elements, but its success made them an important part of Sub Zero Project's recognisable musical language. The combination of hardstyle and psytrance later became much more widespread, while the duo continued changing the structure and sound of their kicks from one track to another.
During the same period, they released DRKNSS with Da Tweekaz, DSTNY with Devin Wild, Wake Up with Zatox and Nikkita and Playing With Fire. Rather than settling into a single successful formula, Sub Zero Project gradually increased the melodic component of their music and began working with more expansive intros.
Our Church with Headhunterz
One of the major events of 2018 was the collaboration Our Church with Headhunterz. Unlike the darker work of Sub Zero Project, the track was built around a large emotional melody, choral elements and a contrast between a ceremonial introduction and a hard main section.
Our Church later became one of the best-known tracks in the Sub Zero Project catalogue; the official Dirty Workz profile lists it alongside Darkest Hour, HALO and Trip To Mars among the duo's major hits.
The collaboration with Headhunterz was also important to the development of their own style. Sub Zero Project demonstrated that their music could exist beyond the boundaries of raw hardstyle. Strong melodies and complex dramatic structures gradually became just as important to their work as the design of the kick drum.
The collaboration later continued with Amen, which appeared on the debut album Contagion.
The XPRMNT
In 2018, Sub Zero Project introduced the concept The XPRMNT. Around different stages of their career, the duo began developing not only music but also their own visual language — stage design, costumes, graphics and special versions of tracks.
This approach became an important part of the project's later history. In the following years, Sub Zero Project regularly created separate live concepts corresponding to specific periods: The Project, The XPRMNT, The Contagion, Rave Into Space, Renaissance Of Rave, Psychodelic, Robot Ravolution and later Our World. In 2024, all these stages were brought together in the special All In One show.
The Game Changer — the Qlimax 2018 anthem
One of the biggest achievements of their early career was the invitation to create the official anthem for Qlimax 2018. The track was titled The Game Changer. Q-dance officially presented it as the anthem for the event held on November 24, 2018 at GelreDome in Arnhem.
For Sub Zero Project, this had particular significance. Qlimax has historically been one of the key events in hardstyle culture, and the creation of its annual anthem has generally been entrusted to artists who already hold a prominent position within the genre.
The Game Changer developed ideas introduced in The Project: unusual kick-drum design was combined with orchestral dramaturgy, large transitions and a dark atmosphere suited to the aesthetic of Qlimax.
Together with the anthem, the duo gained the opportunity to present their own interpretation of hardstyle to a much broader international audience. By the end of 2018, Sub Zero Project were no longer viewed merely as a promising rawstyle project and had become artists capable of headlining major events within the genre.
Darkest Hour (The Clock)
The next important stage was connected with D-Block & S-te-Fan. Their collaboration Darkest Hour (The Clock) became one of the best-known works in both groups' catalogues and was later included on Sub Zero Project's debut album. Dirty Workz also lists Darkest Hour among the duo's major hits.
The track is particularly representative of Sub Zero Project's musical structure during this period. The melodic section is not used simply as a pause between heavier passages. The entire composition is built around the dramatic development of its theme, while changes in kick-drum character become part of the overall composition.
Sub Zero Project developed a long-term creative partnership with D-Block & S-te-Fan. Several years later they reunited for Change To Follow, released in 2025, and in 2026 appeared together again on 4 THE SCENE.
Contagion
The first full-length studio album, Contagion, was released in 2019 on Dirty Workz. It brought together material accumulated after the periods of The Project and The XPRMNT and established Sub Zero Project's characteristic combination of hard hardstyle with a cinematic atmosphere.
The album opens with Patient Zero and unfolds as a thematically connected sequence of tracks. It includes Darkest Hour (The Clock) with D-Block & S-te-Fan, the title track The Contagion with Christina Novelli, Break The Game with KELTEK, Call Of The Sacred with Phuture Noize, Amen with Headhunterz, The Source with Frequencerz and All Night with Bryant Powell.
The album's title and visual design were connected with the concept of contagion, which was also extended into the accompanying live show. This allowed the music, video and stage elements to form a unified narrative rather than presenting the record simply as a collection of singles.
Contagion also demonstrated the scale of Sub Zero Project's creative network within hardstyle. Nearly every major stage of the album is linked to collaborations with artists representing different sides of the genre — from melodic hardstyle to its harder forms.
In the same 2019, Sub Zero Project entered the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs for the first time, placing 95th.
Rave Into Space
After Contagion, the duo moved on to their next concept — Rave Into Space. The track of the same name retained Sub Zero Project's hard foundation while significantly strengthening the science-fiction and futuristic side of their music.
This period also marked a further expansion of their genre range. Trance harmonies, big room elements, psytrance, techno and contemporary festival EDM increasingly appeared in their music. At the same time, the duo did not aim to identify permanently with any single variety of hardstyle. In an interview with Tomorrowland, Thomas Velderman and Nigel Coppen emphasised that they do not like limiting themselves to genre boundaries and use elements from different forms of electronic music.
This approach is especially clear in collaborations with artists outside the traditional hardstyle scene. Over the years, Sub Zero Project have worked with Timmy Trumpet, W&W, Hardwell, Vini Vici and other musicians while retaining the recognisable hardness of their own sound.
HALO and Trip To Mars
At the beginning of the 2020s, two tracks were added to the Sub Zero Project catalogue that became particularly important for the project's future direction — HALO and Trip To Mars.
HALO reflects the more emotional side of the duo: a large-scale melody is placed alongside extremely hard main sections. This contrast would later become one of Sub Zero Project's most characteristic techniques. Dirty Workz lists the track among their major hits.
Trip To Mars continued the space theme of the Rave Into Space period and also became one of the duo's best-known works. Both tracks were later included on their second studio album, Renaissance Of Rave.
Renaissance Of Rave
The second studio album, Renaissance Of Rave, was released on July 1, 2022 through Dirty Workz. The standard edition contains 15 tracks, while an expanded physical edition includes an additional disc with special versions of earlier material.
The album opens with the title track Renaissance Of Rave. It is followed by Nightwatch Underground, Fly With Me, Trip To Mars, Mind Of A Warrior with Coone and Atilax, A New Beginning, Nightmare Nirvana with Diandra Faye, Trinity Till Infinity with Devin Wild, Lions, HALO, One Last Time with Ran-D, BASE with E-Life, Live Fast Die Young with Rebelion and Soft Ass Shit with Timmy Trumpet.
The title Renaissance Of Rave reflects an idea important to the duo: modern hard electronic music is viewed not as an isolated genre but as part of a broader rave culture. As a result, hardstyle on the album exists alongside influences from trance, psytrance and other styles.
The album received the Hardstyle Award 2022 in the Best Album category. Hardstyle.com listed it among the major albums of the year and separately highlighted the scale of the year for the duo.
By this point, Sub Zero Project were already regular performers at some of the world's largest international events. The official Dirty Workz biography lists Tomorrowland, EDC, Defqon.1, Ultra Music Festival and Medusa Festival.
Path Of The Warrior and Defqon.1
The next symbolic achievement was the creation of the official anthem for Defqon.1 Weekend Festival 2023. The track was titled Path Of The Warrior. Q-dance officially released it as the festival anthem in February 2023.
For a hardstyle artist, being invited to create a Defqon.1 anthem carries particular status. The festival is one of the largest international events in the entire harder styles culture, and its annual anthems become part of the history of the genre.
In Path Of The Warrior, Sub Zero Project combined the epic presentation associated with Defqon.1 with their own rhythmic approach. The track features an orchestral introduction, a large-scale melodic theme and several different types of kick drum, making it feel like a continuation of the duo's entire previous development rather than an isolated festival production.
By 2023, the Sub Zero Project catalogue therefore included official anthems for two of Q-dance's best-known events — Qlimax and Defqon.1.
Psychodelic and the development of live concepts
In 2023, Sub Zero Project launched the Psychodelic show. It continued their practice of creating separate live identities for different periods of their work.
Instead of an ordinary DJ performance, these programmes are built around pre-designed visuals, special versions of tracks and a defined dramatic structure. This allows Sub Zero Project to change not only their music but also the overall image of the project almost every year.
In 2023, the duo also held their own major event in Düsseldorf. According to Dirty Workz and Hardstyle.com, the approximately 7,500-capacity show sold out.
Robot Ravolution
In 2024, the next stage was the concept Robot Ravolution. The name itself combines the words robot, rave and revolution and corresponds to the more mechanical and technological aesthetic of the show. Dirty Workz lists Robot Ravolution as Sub Zero Project's main new live concept for 2024.
During the same period, the musicians held a large-scale headline event at Waagnatie in Antwerp. The special show brought together eight previous live identities: The Project, The XPRMNT, The Contagion, Rave Into Space, Renaissance Of Rave, Psychodelic, Bad Trip and Robot Ravolution.
This format made it possible to present the development of Sub Zero Project almost as a sequence of separate eras. In hardstyle, where live material is often updated extremely quickly, revisiting older programmes also emphasised how large a catalogue the duo had accumulated over a decade.
Bad Trip
A separate part of Sub Zero Project's modern history is the Bad Trip concept, focused on the hardest side of their music.
Unlike melodic tracks such as HALO or Our Church, Bad Trip is built around more aggressive rhythmic ideas and deliberately abrupt kick-drum changes. The project demonstrates that Sub Zero Project have not abandoned their rawstyle roots even after reaching the world's largest festival stages.
In 2025, they combined this side of their work with Rebelion Overdose in the special collaborative performance Bad Dose. According to the musicians, separate collaborative material was also planned for the project.
It Will Be OK
One of the most important works of 2025 was It Will Be OK, recorded together with Dual Damage. The track combined Sub Zero Project's melodic side with the contemporary aesthetic of harder rawstyle.
Hardstyle.com later highlighted It Will Be OK as the track that took first place in the final Top 100 2025 voting, while the official Sub Zero Project profile describes it as one of their biggest successes of the year.
Its success is also important because it reflects the changing hardstyle scene itself. In the mid-2010s, melodic hardstyle and rawstyle often existed as relatively separate directions. By the mid-2020s, the boundary had become considerably less strict, and Sub Zero Project were among the artists capable of combining bright vocals and emotional melodies with extremely hard main sections.
Change To Follow and Capital Of Crazy
In March 2025, Sub Zero Project reunited with D-Block & S-te-Fan and released Change To Follow. The continuation of their long-running collaboration appeared several years after Darkest Hour (The Clock) and demonstrated how much the sound of both groups had changed in the meantime.
In May of the same year, Sub Zero Project and Rebelion, featuring Micah Martin, created Capital Of Crazy — the official anthem of Intents Festival 2025.
This added another major festival anthem to the duo's existing Qlimax and Defqon.1 anthems.
Tomorrowland and the return to the DJ Mag Top 100
In 2025, Sub Zero Project performed on Tomorrowland's main stage for the first time. DJ Mag also highlighted their appearances at EDC Las Vegas and other international festivals, as well as tours in Australia, Canada and the United States.
In an interview with Tomorrowland, the duo discussed the expansion of hardstyle beyond its own scene. According to the musicians, harder styles tracks are increasingly appearing in the sets of hard techno artists and performers from other electronic genres, opening the music to a new audience. Sub Zero Project themselves consistently support this exchange and do not limit their work to a single set of genre rules.
After several years away, Sub Zero Project also returned to the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs, placing 64th in the 2025 ranking.
Our World
The next major stage was Our World. The world premiere of the new live show took place at Sub Zero Project's own event in Antwerp at the end of 2025. The creators described the concept as four different worlds, each with its own theme and visual design.
Unlike some previous programmes, Our World was conceived from the beginning as an independent chapter containing a large amount of new music. At the same time, Sub Zero Project continued to present special All In One shows combining material from previous periods.
In May 2026, the concept received its own major event, Sub Zero Project presents Our World, at Halle Münsterland in Münster.
The track Our World itself was released in 2026; an extended version appeared on Dirty Workz on May 15, while another version entered the Intents Records catalogue in June.
2026 releases
The new period of Sub Zero Project continued with Are U Me, whose extended version was released on Dirty Workz on April 10, 2026.
The current discography also includes Never Coming Down, Never Surrender with Nathalie Blue and other tracks connected with the Our World period.
In July 2026, Sub Zero Project once again joined D-Block & S-te-Fan for 4 THE SCENE, released with the involvement of the 4444 OF A KIND project on Defqon.1 Records.
The duo's current period therefore continues the line established as early as The Project: each new series of tracks is accompanied by a change in sonic palette and stage identity while maintaining a connection with hardstyle.
The musical style of Sub Zero Project
The foundation of Sub Zero Project's music is hardstyle, although throughout their career the duo have consistently expanded its boundaries. Their tracks contain elements of rawstyle, psytrance, trance, techno and other styles of electronic music. Velderman and Coppen themselves emphasise that they prefer not to think in strict genre categories.
The main technical feature of the project remains their work with the kick drum. Within a single track, its timbre can change repeatedly: a deep, extended hit may be replaced by a shorter, drier one, followed by a rhythmic sequence with frequent accents. As a result, the main section develops not only through melody or harmony but through the character of the drums themselves.
After The Project, rhythms associated with psytrance influence became especially recognisable. However, Sub Zero Project did not turn this technique into an unchanging formula. In later years they used heavier rawstyle kicks, high-pitched and deliberately distorted hits, classic hardstyle constructions and numerous intermediate variations.
The second major component of their music is melody. Tracks such as Our Church, Darkest Hour, HALO, Trip To Mars and It Will Be OK show that an emotional theme can be just as important to Sub Zero Project as a heavy rhythmic section. In 2025, the musicians themselves noted that audiences respond particularly strongly to the combination of vocals and melody with energetic main sections.
A third defining characteristic is the theatrical construction of introductions and transitions. Spoken fragments, orchestral elements, choirs, sound effects and long build-ups turn individual tracks into small narrative episodes. This principle is then transferred to live shows, where different compositions are united by a shared visual concept.
Live concepts
Throughout their career, Sub Zero Project have transformed different stages of their discography into independent live concepts. These include:
- The Project
- The XPRMNT
- The Contagion
- Rave Into Space
- Renaissance Of Rave
- Psychodelic
- Bad Trip
- Robot Ravolution
- Our World
In 2024–2025, the duo also used the All In One format, combining material from different periods in a single performance.
This approach to live activity distinguishes Sub Zero Project from the standard model in which a new album simply adds several tracks to an existing show. For Velderman and Coppen, each period receives its own graphics, stage identity and special versions of the music.
Major collaborations
Over the course of their career, Sub Zero Project have recorded collaborative music with a large number of leading artists from hardstyle and other areas of the electronic scene.
Particularly important were the collaborations with Headhunterz — Our Church and Amen — and with D-Block & S-te-Fan, with whom they created Darkest Hour (The Clock), Change To Follow and later 4 THE SCENE.
Other collaborators include Timmy Trumpet, W&W, Hardwell, Vini Vici, Da Tweekaz, Devin Wild, Phuture Noize, KELTEK, Frequencerz, Coone, Ran-D, Rebelion, Dual Damage and many others.
This range of collaborations reflects Sub Zero Project's position between several areas of the electronic scene: the duo remain a hardstyle project but regularly work both with rawstyle artists and with performers from festival electronic music, trance and psytrance.
Sub Zero Project albums
Contagion — 2019
The debut studio album. It includes Patient Zero, Darkest Hour (The Clock), The Contagion, Break The Game, Be My Guide, Call Of The Sacred, Amen, The Source and other tracks.
Contagion completed the stage begun with The Project and The XPRMNT and established Sub Zero Project among the leading representatives of a new generation of hardstyle.
Renaissance Of Rave — 2022
The second studio album, containing 15 main tracks. Among them are Renaissance Of Rave, Nightwatch Underground, Fly With Me, Trip To Mars, Mind Of A Warrior, Nightmare Nirvana, Trinity Till Infinity, HALO, One Last Time, BASE, Live Fast Die Young and Soft Ass Shit.
The album received the Hardstyle Award for Best Album 2022.
Key tracks
Among the most significant works by Sub Zero Project are:
The Project, Playing With Fire, Our Church, The Game Changer, Darkest Hour (The DefqonClock), Patient Zero, The Contagion, Amen, Rave Into Space, HALO, Trip To Mars, Renaissance Of Rave, Fly With Me, Live Fast Die Young, Path Of The Warrior, It Will Be OK, Change To Follow, Capital Of Crazy, Are U Me, Our World and 4 THE SCENE.
The significance of Sub Zero Project for modern hardstyle
Sub Zero Project emerged at a time when raw hardstyle had already developed its own scene but still retained a relatively stable set of sonic rules. The Project demonstrated one way out of that framework: heaviness could be preserved while rhythmic ideas from psytrance were introduced and the very structure of the kick drum was changed.
The duo later went further. Instead of choosing between melodic hardstyle and rawstyle, Velderman and Coppen began combining both approaches within a single track. This is why their catalogue can contain Our Church and HALO with large emotional themes alongside the much more aggressive Bad Trip and collaborations with artists outside the traditional hardstyle scene.
By the middle of the 2020s, the influence of this approach had become especially visible against the broader convergence of hardstyle, rawstyle and hard techno. Sub Zero Project themselves noted growing interest in harder styles from other areas of electronic music and viewed this exchange as an opportunity for the genre to continue developing.
At the same time, the project's international growth did not lead them to abandon hardstyle. In 2025, Sub Zero Project performed on Tomorrowland's main stage for the first time and returned to the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs at number 64, while continuing to position themselves specifically as a hardstyle duo.
The history of Sub Zero Project reflects the evolution of hardstyle from a relatively self-contained European scene into music capable of existing at the world's largest international festivals alongside other areas of electronic culture. From their early releases on Anarchy and the breakthrough of The Project to the Qlimax and Defqon.1 anthems, the albums Contagion and Renaissance Of Rave and the modern Our World concept, the duo maintain one central principle — constantly changing the structure of their own music without losing its hard rhythmic foundation.
