Before Asobi Seksu (Japanese for "playful sex"), the last Japanese band to come out of New York were the delightfully silly Cibo Matto, whose lyrics were sung in an Engrish babble about camels, sugar water, and palmtrees. But Asobi Seksu are a different kind of band: critics have tended to group them instantly as shoegazers, along with bands such as My Bloody Valentine, due to their extensive use of reverb and ethereal noise.

So, beyond the charming English babble, the two bands have very little in common.

Asobi Seksu's 2006 album, Citrus, is a nugget of intense, mind-bending rock, but it is not a traditional shoegazer album. For one thing, Citrus is far too upbeat. "Strings," a single off the album, is positively cheery — which makes their use of reverb all the more interesting.

Lead singer Yuki Chikudate's voice is brilliantly versatile: one moment it's soft, the next it's a Björk-like screech. There are some other very interesting parings on the album: "Mizu Asobi" manages somehow to combine 80's pop with reverb guitar, while "Thursday" combines some great indie rock guitar work with some very intense drumming.

But Asobi Seksu couldn't completely ignore one of their influences, and "Red Sea" is a fitting tribute to My Bloody Valentine's style, because it's the most hard core track on the album.