Idol rock is, when you get down to it, a perfect beast. Rock music, for all its historical swagger and bluster and preening, is ultimately about rhythms and hooks, which is why it’s always so easily be re-worked with pop sensibilities for people who might prefer to skip the distortion on a Monday morning. Add on top of that idol and its eminent flexibility, and your result is something that just plain oozes crowd-pleasing … when done right. Just like eggs or pizza, it is possible to get this wonderfully simple formula wrong, and then it is very bad, which deserves credit in itself for being so hard to accomplish.

Q’ulle, though, perhaps the modern doyennes of true idol rock, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen them miss. And this new single out in a couple of weeks has all the hallmarks of being right at the top of their body of work:

Taking some cues from Yuzuki, I see

Here’s what I’m taking to be the B-side, which … it’s a nice B-side:

It must be pretty great to be Q’ulle, honestly. You’re basically the best dancers plying the idol trade, and rather than be shunted into some major label slot as “dancing idols,” you get to do fun rock songs and genuinely succeed at that, too. It must, however, also kind of suck to be Q’ulle, because while you’re reaching boss levels of distinction in the field, you’re still hemmed in by the vicissitudes of the game, the label, etc. It’s like a friend I had back in the day who was a legitimate champion archer — it’s cool to be the best at what you do, but it sucks when the field just isn’t that large. Big fish, small pond, all that. And no, idol (and idol rock) isn’t a small pond per se, though you’ll find that you start to stretch when you add “good” as a qualifier, and pretty soon … I think you get the idea.

Anyway, third single under Avex, and this one’s right up there with 2016’s genuinely really damn good OVER THE HOPE, which I’ll remind you was released while they were in the process of being dumped by their old label. Guess it worked out for them, huh?