More than a few people have recommended petit pas! in the recent past, and I’ve been sort of vaguely aware of them for a while, imagining them more in the vein of the sister site that may or may not happen.

What the hell was I thinking?

Remember what I said on Fruitpochette’s profile?

You’d have to be an asshole not to like that.

Petit pas! is a neat little group. The name means “small steps” in French (Google it and be amazed at the dance schools that come up in the results), and that’s how they approach their work, kind of slowly and steadily building success. They’re creatively all over the map, too, as individuals.

“Re:START” is a great little rock song, the kind of thing that would spring to mind at the mention of “J-rock” way more than, say, ONE OK ROCK or a lot of others — it’s literally “here’s a good rock song that in that endearingly Japanese way is almost all the way into metal territory and has like two instruments more than it needs, with an idol vocal part.”

Damn, I like it a lot. Which makes sense, because petit pas! just put it on Soundcloud to lead up to the release of their first full album, Refrain, on May 25. So stay tuned; I reckon that we’ll get more in the coming weeks.

プティパ -petit pas!- 1stフルアルバム[Refrain]の発売が決定しました！5/25発売・詳細は追ってお知らせいたします！ #プティパ https://t.co/W40erz9ZfR

— プティパ -petit pas!- (@petitpas_pmr) March 5, 2016

And I guess I’ll add YET ANOTHER group to the to-do-profiles list. sigh