Hardwell Collides Past, Present and Peak Festival Power in ‘Hardwell & Friends Vol. 4’

The Dutch EDM icon revives his collaborative EP series with a trio of tracks tracing his evolution.

Hardwell is back at the helm of his Hardwell & Friends EP series, lighting the fuse on a release built to shake three generations of festival kids at once.

The Dutch EDM powerhouse has released the fourth installment in the series, a fan-favorite format that first emerged during the 2010s big room house boom. Pairing with rising producers and legacy collaborators to stretch his sound in multiple directions at once, Volume 4 arrives after a long hiatus, landing at a moment when Hardwell’s post-2022 “rebirth” era has already scrambled expectations.

The new EP traces Hardwell’s evolution with three tracks that hit different corners of his sound. “The Party Crasher,” a reunion with fellow Dutch juggernaut Chuckie, bottles the swagger of the Dirty Dutch era with slinky leads and that elastic, side-winding house energy Chuckie helped define. “Lights Out” (with Ollie James) snaps back into Hardwell’s modern mainstage-techno self with acid-flecked synth stabs and the stadium-sized insistence that’s become his calling card since his Ultra 2022 return.

Finally, “Rise Again” (with RYOS) taps into the voltage of the big room epoch Hardwell once dominated with ominous chords, wide-angle textures and drops built for the kind of festival moments that feel half-euphoric, half-apocalyptic.

Taken together, the EP functions like a timeline with three chapters of Hardwell’s identity stitched into one release, reminding us how much of modern festival culture runs straight through his discography. You can listen to the new EP below and find it on streaming platforms here.