Do you want to know how hard I was prepared, and like instantly, to jump into this post and start crapping all over this as soon as I saw the announcement? I didn’t have kind words for the Pour Lui-less BiS in the 2019 preview, I wasn’t really looking forward to this new single, I thought the plan to reunite the full group was the kind of good-decision-fixing-a-bad-decision move that makes a manager look bad anyway … basically, I thought that BiS, once upon a time not just the standard bearer for this whole thing that we follow, but its literal founder, was all but done.

How fitting then that the first shot across the bow for their fourth major single, titled so as to give me “Blind” flashbacks every time I see it, doesn’t just recall the last time that the group rose from the ashes, but uses the same song, the same theme, maybe even the same location for all I know. “BiS reaggregated!” is even right there on the description, just in case we missed the rest of the allusions.

So how’d they do with it?

Hell, the only new thing is the record label

I was actually surprised that they went as hard back toward the entire original “BiSBiS” aesthetic, to be honest, but also managed to make it more of a tribute than a rip-off, even if Pour Lui singing by herself has as much power as the current group as a whole (not a dig!).

Nonetheless, they do a good job at capturing the feelings of re-emerging from a disaster, a trainwreck, an industrial accident, and unlike Puu’s phoenix-like rise back to life and health, this video has the good sense to capture the BiS members pulling each other up, leaning on each other, giving support. And in a lot of ways, the visual works even better this time around. OG BiS was deliberately and intentionally disbanded; its successor was jerked around and put through awkward travails that frankly made it difficult to follow, especially after the split, which was dumb and I’m glad that everybody involved acknowledged that. The group even sounds better now, some of that borne of experience but probably also confidence, though that the song’s first verse was senior-led with Kika and Aya driving the chorus like when they first stood out in the 2016 auditions, that was a nice touch.

The single is out on the 20th. I’m ready to be cautiously optimistic. Maybe we’ll even get another MV before then!