The K-pop scene has been increasingly full of songs borrowing elements from rock music lately. This year in particular has seen more and more artists experimenting with adding distorted guitars on top of different beats—perhaps in a show of rebelliousness. BTS layered crunchy guitar over an old-school hip hop drum loop in “Run BTS,” DRIPPIN mixed it with a modern K-pop trap beat in “ZERO” and TOMORROW X TOGETHER used it as flavor overtop post-processing-laden conga drums in “Good Boy Gone Bad.” And this isn’t limited to guitar: Several groups have pursued a dark pop rock style. Xdinary Heroes used a standard rock band formation in their song “Test Me” while (G)I-DLE and Billlie took the pop rock sound and added eye-catching choreography in their songs “TOMBOY” and “RING ma Bell (what a wonderful world),” respectively. But any discussion of this trend of distorted guitars and hard-hitting drums would be incomplete if we didn’t touch on K-pop rock’s most regular proponent over the past five years—a group that’s practically monopolized the sound for themselves. We’re talking, of course, about Dreamcatcher.

K-pop with a rock influence: That’s the consistent musical vision Dreamcatcher has kept to since their debut in January 2017. Though their vocals and elaborate group dances place them squarely in the tradition of K-pop girl groups, their music rests on a foundation of rock and metal that was unheard of in the K-pop world in 2017. Dreamcatcher felt like a radical departure in the beginning, but with pop rock making a resurgence, the group is enjoying more attention than ever as the original K-pop rock group. The way they refined their unique style patiently over five years’ time, long before other artists jumped on the bandwagon, has led people to see their perseverance as one of their greatest strengths.

The mid- to late 2010s saw pundits in the UK and US pop markets declaring “rock is dead,” agreeing with the same opinion that Gene Simmons from Kiss had been expressing in interviews as far back as 2014. Rock, the undisputed champ of pop music for the longest time, gradually lost its reign to the emergence of hip hop from the 1990s onward and to the EDM boom in the late 2000s. In 2017, the media reported that sales of electric guitars had declined by a third over the preceding decade and physical album sales were ultimately outpaced by streaming (where hip hop and EDM perform best, compared to rock’s reliance on physical). Rock influences were few and far between in the K-pop idol scene at the time, which was developing in tandem with trends in the US market.

Matters were different in neighboring Japan and its inward-looking music market, where the market for rock music remained as strong as ever. The demand for rock bands remained steady and sales of physical media remained high in contrast to other countries. Most new artists who found popularity on the Internet had rock influences, too, and lushly arranged and deftly performed rock songs remained popular on video-sharing websites like Niconico. AKB48’s sister groups continued to consistently dominate the charts throughout the mid-2010s with hit songs characterized by lavish guitar work and thunderous drumming. And, just as they had in the 20th century, rock bands were the force behind major anime soundtracks. In Korea, longtime rock fans and listeners with an interest in these Japanese subcultures were as affectionate toward rock music as ever.

Five of the members of Dreamcatcher had previously debuted as part of MINX in 2014, but the group did little to stand out from the numerous other new girl group. With MINX stagnating, Lee Joowon, CEO of Happyface Entertainment (now Dreamcatcher Company), was dreaming up a new image for them. For context, Lee had always had a deep passion for Japanese pop, especially J-rock. He got his start in the music business in the 1990s importing Japanese records and invited Yoshiki, leader of the group X Japan, to hold his first concert in Korea. In the 2000s, most K-pop girl groups were designed to appeal to the broadest audience possible. Unlike boy bands and the enthusiastic fanbases they would build up, the typical strategy for girl groups was to target the general public. By the mid-2010s, some fan-centric girl groups, like TWICE and Red Velvet, helped to solidify the idea of girl group fandoms, as did Mnet’s Produce 101, but no one was quite sure whether it was a sound strategy to pursue in the 2015–2016 period during which MINX was in the process of reorganizing themselves. In an unprecedented and apparently reckless move, Dreamcatcher decided to defy expectations and target a narrower audience: fans of rock and Japanese subcultures. But the mid-2010s also saw a gradual increase in interest toward K-pop worldwide thanks to social media and video-sharing services, and the artists who found the most opportunity were the ones who stood out thanks to their charm, skill and unique sound. After recruiting more members and completely reworking their image, Dreamcatcher bet on a long-shot pivot and debuted again in 2017.

And their gamble paid off. Within a year of debuting, the group was already on a world tour and quickly established a fandom with people not only from Korea but particularly from abroad. Since then, Dreamcatcher has released a steady stream of on-brand K-pop hits, developing musically while remaining consistent in tone. Their debut song, “Chase Me,” was heavily influenced by J-rock, “You & I” placed greater emphasis on melody, “Deja Vu” put a K-pop spin on 2000s emo rock and “Scream” went beyond the group’s early J-rock sound and expanded into a whole soundscape of coarse guitars and drums.

Released on October 11, Apocalypse: Follow us is the second album in Dreamcatcher’s Apocalypse series. Expectations ran high for this comeback as the group was following on the success of the single “MAISON” off Apocalypse: Save us, which had secured their first number one on a music show since they debuted five years, three months and six days prior. They also performed at Primavera Sound in Spain this past summer, one of the world’s biggest rock festivals. The fact that the organizers sent Dreamcatcher a private jet confirmed that the group was now flying high.

Dreamcatcher invested everything they learned from their gradual climb to success into their new music and videos and now have the most modern comeback single of their long history to show for it. Written and arranged by June One Kim from Glen Check, “VISION” shows a notable departure from rock drumming to an electronic drum kit instead. They call this dark techno, a genre recently given prominence as the backdrop for many cyberpunk movies and games, and it’s easy to imagine Dreamcatcher’s single would be right at home there.

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that first emerged at the end of the 20th century with an eye toward the near future of the new millennium ahead. It largely disappeared as excitement for the new era shifted directions, but its distinctively dark and cyber-themed images made a partial comeback with the retro culture revival of the 2010s. It’s also worth noting that the original message behind cyberpunk has come to the fore again, as the once fictional crises besetting humanity have since begun to take shape in reality, including Big Brother-like monitoring and control, ethical issues raised by scientific and technological progress and climate change at the hand of pollution. The aesthetics behind the music video for “VISION” are more closely aligned with a Marvel superhero movie than cyberpunk, but the narrative running throughout the Apocalypse series sets off alarm bells over the destruction of the environment. Interestingly, the image Dreamcatcher puts forth with this release is a far cry from the “exotic” cyberpunk aesthetic rooted in Western objectification of major East Asian cities. Cyberpunk is often criticized for the way it depicts overcrowded cities full of neon lights, lonesome streetscapes, the stock beautiful and mysterious Asian woman character and a society dictated by ethically questionable sexual promiscuity, all in an effort to titillate the lowest common denominator of audience desire. Whereas the narrator of “MAISON” was pleading with others to help save the world, that same narrator steps up as the heroic vanguard in “VISION,” leading the crowd without relying on anyone else, while SIYEON’s piercing shout and DAMI’s weighty rap build upon the thematic tension. The grave mood of the song ultimately comes across as persuasive thanks to the group’s consistent and organically evolving style.

The song “Fairytale,” with its delicious, hazy reverb, is a great choice for anyone who loves the kind of K-pop rock song that sets the heart aflutter, like IU’s “eight” or SEVENTEEN’s “Run to you.” The album also makes room for other fantastic tracks, such as the synth bass-driven “Some Love” and the lyrical piano ballad “Rainy Day.”

Dreamcatcher broke the mold early on in their career and they remain unbound by the norms dictating how girl groups should act. It could be for this reason that more than a few K-pop listeners feel some distance from the group despite their enormous and ongoing success. If you’re part of that crowd, it might help to picture the Dreamcatcher experience as closer to a Marvel movie or console game than the K-pop you’re more familiar with. “VISION” would make a particularly good starting point for anyone finding themselves drawn in by the recent trend of guitar-oriented rock. I can’t recommend enough that anyone who hasn’t already had a chance to sit down with Dreamcatcher take some time to trace the six years of steps this group has taken by starting with their latest single and working their way back to the beginning.