"We wanted to be a band with songs and not just the banal lyrics you usually get in dance music," says Saffron, lead singer of Republica. Although the group's members met through London's dance culture, they grew up on the Clash and the Jam, bands that made music "you would go home excited about," says the singer.

In "Ready to Go," the rousing anthem from the group's eponymous debut, Rupublica (whose name is an Hommage to the New Order album Republic) have grafted the power chords and hook-laden pop of early '80's New Wave onto a driving '90's dance groove. The result sounds as good in a nightclub as it does on the car radio after a hard day at work. It has also sent the single onto both the Billboard Hot 100 and Modern Rock charts.

Republica's hybrid sound has made them hard to categorize, but Saffron - who once sarred as Magenta, the purple-coiffed maid, in a London production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show - sees this as a blessing. "We're not Brit pop, and we're not a dance act," she says. "We're quite proud of that."