BESIDE

ASTERISM announced BESIDE on 2 August 2023, and SME Records released the fifth EP worldwide as a download and stream at midnight Japan time on 1 September 2023. It is the second of the band's vocal collections, following ASIDE in March. In July the band had toured the United States, appearing at the opening ceremony of Anime Expo in Los Angeles and playing free concerts in California and New York. The EP was announced together with a national tour for November, the band's largest yet in cities and dates, and MIO said the members were looking forward to showing how much they had grown through the American tour. The five songs are "STARDOM", "Sunny", "No Way", "Last World" and "Finally". HAL-CA wrote all the lyrics, and the lead track, "STARDOM", is credited for music and arrangement to ASTERISM; it would later open DECIDE as well. HAL-CA described the EP as carrying, like its predecessor, the band's resolve to leap into a wider world through singing as well as through instruments, and expected listeners to hear how far the band had come since ASIDE; MIYU pointed out that some of the songs take a different style from those on ASIDE. The video for "STARDOM" followed on 8 September. Directed by Takayuki Kojima, it pays homage to the hard rock and heavy metal legends the band looks up to, with seventeen costumes put together by the styling team SNACK NGL; HAL-CA said it shows a funny, playful ASTERISM as well as a cool one. The November tour was named on 15 September as ASTERISM "DECIDE" Release Tour 2023 -THE DECISION-, and the five songs of BESIDE went on to the third full album, DECIDE, released on 1 November.