In a brief two years, Fukuoka quartet culenasm have established themselves as worthy successors to a brand of shoegaze-adjacent indie rock uniquely informed by J-pop sensibilities. It’s a vacuum that’s been left behind ever since the demise of by-now icons Kinoko Teikoku – and a large factor to culenasm’s potential successorship lies in the distinctively translucent vocal presence of vocalist moe. While not a gargantuan operatic presence like Kinoko’s Chiaki Sato, culenasm compensate with a refreshing, melodic sweetness, and on their debut album, rest of the dusk, they channeled their best Kinoko impressions to marvellous results – with tracks like White Memory and Ao wo Miru surging shoegaze-pop tendencies to post-rockian heights.

On the following effort, in your fragrance, they refined their sound in both extremes – channelling powerful oceanic walls of sound on singles like petal, while amplifying their festival-ready J-pop tendencies on others like Helshinki’s Dream, its barrelling basslines and chiming arpeggios paving the path to a massive pop-friendly chorus. Coming into their new album Eyes on you, it’s the latter that has taken hold. In a sharp turn over these six tracks, their J-pop inclinations no longer serves as undercurrent, but a glowing sign of their full-blown jump into the spotlight, as they try their best to get into the good books of Rockin’On Magazine.

Yet unlike Kinoko’s major-label turn into milder, city-flavored grooves, culenasm’s stylings stay laser focused on radiant choruses and anthemic rock energy. It’s no more obvious than on their singles – powerful backbeats color the yearning melancholy of Kimi no Inai Sekai (A World Without You), while they colored their lead single, Daggers in Yorushika-like guitar theatrics, breaking out as one of their biggest songs so far with a similarly animated, cerulean video. By all means, eyes on you does not fail on its merits as a pop album – its powerful hooks are undeniable and carry the album wonderfully.

But with their shift into the limelight, they also risk losing what made them magical in the first place – their unique melancholic synergy between J-pop sweetness and urgent walls of sound. Mabushikute (Blinding) is demonstrative of when this works best. On top of a driving backbeat, wandering guitar arpeggios and ambient textures set the stage for a confessional monologue by moe on a relationship reaching an explosive coda – “Let’s end this/Even though I’ve thought about it endlessly/But emotions interfere,” she croons. As she reflects in falsetto, the chorus explodes with a dramatic synth line bending skyward, resulting in a powerful yet fragile atmosphere many of their peers currently struggle to replicate (“Just a little more/Leave it undelivered… to be with you”)

As they take a much poppier approach in their music, their third effort demonstrates that they still very much haven’t lost sight of what makes them great as a band, balancing radiant walls of noise with yearning romanticism. If anything, Mabushikute’s light can serve as a guiding path as they continue forward – the light of pop stardom may be bright, but it doesn’t have to blind.

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