Editorial

“We agreed to ‘do what we want to do’ for the time being,” OFFICIAL HIGE DANDISM vocalist/keyboardist Satoshi Fujihara tells Apple Music. Editorial is the band’s third full-length album and it features 14 diverse tracks. Their previous album, 2019’s Traveler, was a huge hit and made them a nationally renowned band. For this album, though, they freed themselves from the expectations of fans and sales figures.

“I thought, since we’re in a great situation where we can make any type of music we want as a band and people will listen to it, we should give our best, so as not to disrespect the fans who are supporting us. As a result, we decided to stop thinking about what kind of songs would be popular. We agreed to think about what we ourselves wanted to do, first and foremost,” he says.

The album's opening title track is performed a cappella, and it expresses the “desire to convey something but not being able to do so”, Fujihara explains. “As I compiled the songs, I realised that we spent a lot of time making this album and there were lots of obstacles we had to face. But I think that messing up and trying again is part of the fun of making music. We’re the kind of band where the word ‘professional’ doesn’t come to mind—we’re so crude and clumsy and we make lots of mistakes before finally coming up with our ideal vision. It’s a time-consuming process. That’s also exactly the reason why doing it holds a lot of meaning for me and I’ll always be crazy about making music.”

Presumably, the process of “messing up and trying again” is what makes the album worth listening to. “Apoptosis”—Fujihara wrote its melody and basic lyrics on his 29th birthday—delicately describes his emotions as he approaches the age of adulthood. “Filament”—which Fujihara developed with material from drummer Masaki Matsuura—shows how “it’s better to go forward than to go back to the road you came from”, he says. On “Shower”, the lyrics and haunting melodies evoke memories about the places they’ve travelled through in the past: “It's a song that expresses the thoughts we’re having in real life lately. Why is it that I feel so nostalgic when I pass through the town I used to live in? Since there are already other people living [in my old room], it makes me wonder, what kind of people are they?”