OFFICIAL HIGE DANDISM combines heart-on-sleeve pop with sweeping musical gestures on 2018’s Escaparade, the band’s debut full-length after forming in the early 2010s. As the band members stack their funk backbone with rosy jazz-band arrangements of sax and piano, frontman Satoshi Fujihara sings as though he’s shouting his declarations of love through a megaphone. While HIGEDAN dabbles in sleek, electronic dance-pop on tracks like “Takaga I Love You” and “Kanousei,” the band favors an ornate, classic production to craft its own timeless soundtrack to romance. On Escaparade, HIGEDAN comes out swinging with bold musical flourishes, the nuts and bolts of its songs showcasing a keen eye for craftsmanship. Fujihara loves to tease out his lyrical metaphors into great lengths, as he makes clear from the first song, “115 Million Kilometer Film,” where he’s adding his own director’s commentary to the narrative of his relationship like a bonus DVD feature. If he’s the screenwriter charting an elaborate plot, the other band members act as the editors, meticulously pacing out the story arc and making sure important moments land on cue. The patient ballad of “Lady” benefits from the gradual unfurling of its ink-based metaphor of permanent love, taking its time to build up to the point delivered by a grand chorus. With HIGEDAN already writing songs as if they were short films, Escaparade’s sentimental pop previews the success the band went on to have with later song placements in TV shows and movies, starting with this album’s hit single, “No Doubt.” Even setting aside that cinematic eye for detail, HIGEDAN’s happy-go-lucky funk resonates with the sweet romantics as it embraces the thrills of newfound love. It’s as though the band members knew they’d use their later albums to explore bluer moods. All that matters to them on Escaparade is the heart-fluttering sensation of being head over heels.