TRSH exists in the tension between extremes, a tightrope walk that’s volatile and unpredictable yet built on intentional detail. The Springfield, MO quartet has blurred those lines since forming in 2021, childhood friends frustrated by false starts and determined to start a new project in what frontman Derek Berry calls a “last-ditch effort” to make their musical dreams a reality.

“I was like 23 with a newborn baby and felt like, ‘If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and if it does, that's cool,’” Berry remembers. It quickly did, with the group’s 2022 debut LP, Kiss Me, breaking through with a fusion of punk and Midwest emo, diary entries set to dexterous guitar work. A prolific series of follow-ups, from singles like “Dad Rock” and their second album, Soporific, to 2024’s Straw Chairs EP, have taken them even further, going viral on social media, racking up more than 15 million collective streams and cementing Berry, Keiran Andrews (bass), Bowen Pennell (drums) and Gunnar Pennell (guitar) as one of the brightest young acts in emo.

Now, on their new LP, STRING THEORY (Wax Bodega), TRSH unleash their most explosive collection yet, equal parts introspective and irreverent topped off with powder-keg energy and self-deprecating charm. There are no saints in TRSH’s songs, but no villains either. Instead, tracks like the fervent first single “dusty,” galloping “drown me in a bathtub” and pained “hyperpop killed my dog,” with its gut-punch refrain “I’m falling apart,” are transparently honest portraits of fucking up and falling short: bad decisions that felt right at the time, awkward apologies and late-night spirals. The moments when you should shut up but the voice in your head – aided by anxiety, neurosis or illicit substances – won’t let you stop talking.