10th Album: Luxury Disease

Luxury Disease is the tenth studio album by ONE OK ROCK, released on September 9, 2022, and marks a decisive return to the band’s rock-driven foundations while fully integrating the experience gained during their international expansion. Produced by Rob Cavallo, known for his work with artists such as LINKIN PARK and Green Day, the album represents a conscious shift away from the pop-oriented experimentation of Eye of the Storm toward a more guitar-centered, emotionally direct sound. Upon release, Luxury Disease became the band’s fourth consecutive album to reach number one on the Oricon charts, reaffirming their strong position in Japan while maintaining their global momentum.

The album’s title carries layered significance. Luxury Disease is the direct English translation of Zeitakubyō, the title of the band’s major-label debut album released fifteen years earlier. This deliberate reference creates a full-circle moment in ONE OK ROCK’s career, marking both an anniversary and a reset. Rather than nostalgia, the title reflects a renewed confrontation with excess, pressure, and emotional conflict born from success and visibility. In this sense, Luxury Disease signals the beginning of what the band has described as a "second chapter" — a restart grounded in experience, self-awareness, and a return to essentials.

Musically, the album re-centers rock as its core language. While primarily performed in English, it retains the emotional rawness and dynamic intensity that defined the band’s earlier work. Tracks such as Save Yourself open the record with a distinctly recognizable ONE OK ROCK sound, reasserting urgency and emotional immediacy. Neon, co-written with Brendon Urie, introduces a theatrical, almost operatic flair inspired by musical soundtracks and urban nightlife imagery, while Vandalize revives emo-inflected energy with melodic elements rooted in Japanese rock. Across the album, distorted guitars, prominent drums, and expressive vocal delivery take precedence over electronic textures, signaling a clear stylistic recalibration.

The record also showcases a wide emotional and stylistic range. Songs like When They Turn the Lights On explore a dramatic, arena-scale rock approach reminiscent of classic theatrical rock, while Let Me Let You Go, co-written with Ashton Irwin, and So Far Gone lean into vulnerability and emotional restraint. Prove, co-written with Jordan Fish, reinforces themes of determination and growth after failure, while Mad World stands out as a deeply personal reflection on formative struggles, particularly in its Japanese version, which contains the highest concentration of Japanese lyrics on the album. Guest features further expand the album’s expressive scope, including Free Them with Teddy Swims and Renegades, co-written with Ed Sheeran and Masato Hayakawa, which channels urgency, resistance, and collective frustration into an anthemic call for agency.

Lyrically, Luxury Disease grapples with identity, pressure, grief, ambition, and emotional endurance. Many songs reflect an instinctive approach shaped by the uncertainty of the pandemic period, during which parts of the album were written and recorded. Rather than pursuing calculated trends, the band leaned into intuition, allowing both anger and vulnerability to coexist. This balance between intensity and restraint gives the album a sense of flow, beginning with raw confrontation and gradually moving toward reflection and emotional resolution, culminating in tracks like Your Tears are Mine and Wonder, which emphasize connection, release, and perspective. The Japanese edition further deepens this arc with Broken Heart of Gold and Gravity, the latter featuring Satoshi Fujihara, reinforcing themes of resolve and emotional clarity.

The album’s visual identity reinforces its focus on essence and identity. The cover places the band directly within the album’s title, embedding monochrome portraits of the members into the bold typographic logo. This design strips away abstraction in favor of presence, visually asserting that Luxury Disease is inseparable from who ONE OK ROCK are at this stage of their career. The International edition’s reversed, high-contrast color treatment sharpens this statement, while the Japanese edition’s softer black-and-white presentation offers a more subdued emotional tone. In both versions, the stark composition and graphic clarity reflect a rejection of excess in favor of intention and focus.

Luxury Disease stands as one of the most defining releases in ONE OK ROCK’s discography. It reconciles the emotional intensity of their early years with the technical confidence and global awareness developed over time. More than a return to rock, the album represents integration — a reaffirmation of identity shaped by risk, experimentation, and self-examination. As both a milestone and a reset, Luxury Disease lays the foundation for the band’s future while honoring the path that led them there.