Worry Club’s Debut Album ‘I’m Freaking Out’ Is Anxious Honesty
Chicago-based band Worry Club, created and fronted by indie artist Chase Walsh, just released their debut album titled I’m Freaking Out. The project is a 12-track melting pot of Midwest emo, indie-punk, and bedroom pop dreaminess. With its 90s tinged soundscape and vulnerable lyricism, you can feel the anxious grunge and grime seeping out of every second that ticks by.
Walsh shared that the album was built from the survival of panic.
“I wrote and recorded all of these songs in my bedroom over the course of three years. They’re all songs that I wrote when I was truly freaking out all alone,” he said. “I would work through panic attacks by writing songs, recording them, and then listening back to them while I rode around town on my bike.”
The project explores emotional collapse with a sense of chaos, self-deprecating wit, and emotional candor. There’s a constant push and pull between wanting to disappear but also wanting to be seen; it’s emotionally volatile and completely relatable.
The first single from I’m Freaking Out, titled “Anything Else,” was released on April 25, 2025. Placed as track four on the album, the lyrics explore the idea of detached dissociation as a coping mechanism. Its bruised honesty stems from the twisted catharsis of unhealthy coping; it’s sharp, but real.
The next track, “Gentle,” is something opposite of “Anything Else.” It’s about the pain of intimacy, but also a yearning for that pain: “Be gentle with my bones / Break my back when I’m alone.” It’s welcoming the aching that closeness can bring but also being acutely aware of what might happen: “I lose myself in all of you.”
“Fade Away,” is track seven and follows a similar theme to that of “Gentle.” It discusses the idea of a deep desire to be with this person no matter what: “Yeah, if you wanna fade away / That’s fine, let me come too / Waste another day away / It’s fine when it’s with you.” Even if it hurts: “I gotta say I’m quite impressed with / The way you hate my guts,” you’ll do anything for this person: “I think you got me / Right where you want me.” The lyrics are rooted in the desperation for connection.
The two songs are broken up by “My Girl,” one of the album’s only glimmers of hope that love could be enough to keep you going: “Might as well be dead / If you’re not at home / She’s all in my head.” It’s fragile and a little hesitant with lines like “I’m all good til it’s gone” and “I want her so gone” sprinkled through the song. In the end though, this love might just be the thing to hold you steady: “I’m never by my lonely / She my one and only / Even likes the old me.”
The second to last track on the album, “I’m Ded!,” sees a sense of humor in imagining your own death. As the chorus hits everything is let loose and you’re transported to a room packed full of people throwing limbs and banging their heads. The entire song is a surreal, spiraling word vomit paired with punching drums and shouting vocals. It's disorienting in the best possible way.
With this album, Worry Club is growing their sonic landscape into something unmistakably their own. Each song is an anxious late-night confession from someone painfully aware of their flaws.
Worry Club recently announced a 2026 full U.S. tour titled the I’M FREAKING OUT TOUR with special guests Bugsy, Edgehill, Bike Routes, and Wakelee.
Find Worry Club’s upcoming tour dates here and listen to I’m Freaking Out below.
