It's not uncommon for a band to get really big, fade a bit, and then find a revival in Japan. It's hard to say why it happens, exactly, but you won't find

Cheap Trick complaining about it, for instance.

Soft, which will be playing today's 10 p.m. Roustabout! at Bar Bleu, seems to have it backward. Though the band just released its first album stateside this past October, Soft has been big in Japan for several years.

"We're actually a real band over there," guitarist Vincent Perini said. "Nobody has heard of us here."

Perini attributed this difference in enthusiasm to the band's style, which he said channels some of those ostensibly faded-out bands.

"I don't consider us to be a revivalist group, but we definitely draw from bands from the late '80s and early '90s," Perini said.

Singer John Reineck listed United Kingdom bands of that era -- like The Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine, Oasis and The Jesus and Mary Chain -- as primary influences and, to take the parallel further, said he wants to release Soft's newest album in England, as well.

So instead of starting in Great Britain, migrating to America and then heading to Japan, New York-based Soft seems to have hit it big in Japan and will now work on gaining popularity in America before heading to the UK.

Perini said the Japanese audiences have been more open than those in America to Soft's nostalgic style.

"They're more receptive over there," he said. "We catch a lot of flack for that over here."

One person who won't give the band flack for channeling The Stone Roses and Oasis is Roustabout! promoter Jesse Ruegg.

"I'm a huge fan of that Manchester scene from the early '90s," Ruegg said. "It's one of my favorite types of music."

Ruegg said Soft's music definitely fits in with that aesthetic -- "big atmospheric '60s-style guitar pop with a modern twist" -- and was happy the band was kicking off its spring tour in State College before heading to Philadelphia, then to Pittsburgh, across the Midwest and, of course, over to Japan.

"They're a cool enough band that

they'll play a small town just because they're going to have a good time," Ruegg said.

Perini said a big reason Soft hasn't had the reception in America that it has received in Japan is because of the difference in enthusiasm from the band's labels in the two countries. He said the band's Japanese imprint was small when it signed Soft but put all its chips behind the band and really pushed them. But the fact that Soft hasn't had the same support in America hasn't fazed the band.

"No one's really behind us over here yet, but we haven't changed our game plan," Perini said.

Reineck said this is the band's most endearing quality.

"It's definitely part of our thing to rebel against what everyone else is doing," he said. "Our music is a massive rebellion. We're not fighting the world or anything, but we have a very different sound."