In Marlborough, Massachusetts, in a house that never quite learned silence, three sisters built a band out of childhood noise, teenage fracture, and early adult reckoning. Circus Trees have never tried to make their music digestible. Since their start in 2018, they’ve stayed closer to the marrow: grief, estrangement, trauma, healing—but always internal, always theirs. Their latest release This makes me sad, and I miss you arrives not as a coming-of-age story, but a document of surviving it.
The entire album was self-produced at home. Not as a gimmick—just because that’s how they’ve always done it. Finola writes in her bedroom. The rest is built slowly, piece by piece, with Giuliana and Edmee in the rooms next door. “Some songs will take a day while others will take weeks,” they explain. The basement is now a studio. Childhood photos hang next to cables. Their dad still manages their tours. Every part of this band is a byproduct of blood and family—tender, tense, resilient.
We’re hosting the official video premiere for Wish I Was Fine alongside this feature and a full track-by-track commentary from the band. The video takes place in a single room. Finola stands in front while Edmee quietly fills the background with symbols of pressure disguised as décor. It builds slowly, almost unnoticeably, until the weight is too much. “At the end Fin reached her limit and finally interacts with the background, becoming destructive,” they explain. “The song is very heavy and sad.” And it doesn’t need to be more than that.
This isn’t a band interested in spectacle. Their writing process, like their music, is internal first. Songs aren’t sculpted—they unravel. More Than You Could Ask For started as an instrumental, inspired by a dream, and now serves as the opening track. Each line references another song on the record. It’s a mirror maze, quietly reflecting the album’s full weight before it’s even begun.
The core theme across the record? “Growing up, accepting our emotions, and dealing with the pain that is brought to us by our lives.” It’s not a concept album. It’s just their life. Getting Old watches an idol fall apart. Negative Feedback documents a toxic loop with no one left to blame. Alone came after a fight between Edmee and Finola that left both feeling permanently altered. “I felt a type of lonely I had never felt before.”
They’ve grown with every release. From the shoegaze undercurrents of Sakura to the raw dynamics of Delusions, This makes me sad, and I miss you is the sound of their young adulthood arriving—and it doesn’t knock politely. Last year’s East Coast tour with Say Anything marked a major turning point, not in exposure, but in confidence. “We are not afraid of change. As we stay close to what we love, our genre will always bend into how we feel at the time.”
Their reference points are equally fluid: O’brother, Caspian, Julien Baker, Foxing (remembr when we interviewed these legends in their early days 11 years ago?). Not for genre cues, but for emotional permission. “Foxing inspired us in a way that made us feel comfortable to bend the rules and not stick to one genre,” they say. “Julien Baker helped inspire Fin to write such deep and meaningful lyrics in such a beautiful way. O’brother and Caspian have always pushed that instrumental side out of us and showed us how to have deep dynamics throughout our music.”
There’s no sonic consistency across the album—and that’s the point. Save Yourself is stripped, unguarded. Trap Door nearly collapsed during writing until Giuliana instinctively sat behind the drums and anchored it.
I’m a Person Too was written years ago but never fit—until now. “It’s very personal and touches on the fear of having children and a family of my own.” It ends with a trumpet wail from their friend Lauren, a sound that cuts like breath through a panic.
Then there’s 3 Times, written in the heat of emotional aftermath. “It was my song of defeat.” Simple Things didn’t seem like much until it was handed over to Eoghan, who was told simply: “Have fun with it.” What came back changed the band’s own relationship with the track.
Every element of this release, down to the album art, is intentional. The wall on the cover feels so real. Covered originally top to bottom in childhood relics—until they realized too much was too much. “We only actually needed a few items on the wall to convey the emotion we were looking for.”
The support around them is noticeable. Marlborough’s community helped build this band—local connections, lifelong friends, open arms even when they were 13 and their songs were “maybe not the best.” Their dad bought their first instruments. Now he helps run the show.
“We grew up in Marlborough Massachusetts. We have a pretty big family that has always been involved in music so the house was never quiet.” – says the band.
“We made so many different connections growing up in the community, people we are still friends with that have gotten us to where we are today. Everyone we have met has been nothing but supportive and kind to us. Our music has always been accepted even starting out at 13 years old when maybe our music wasn’t the best. We will never take for granted the people we’ve been surrounded with over the years. We would not be where we are without everyone. We have now built out our basement and rooms of the house into recording studios and practice spaces and even offices to be able to thrive as a band. Our dad has not stop supported us and is/will always be involved in the success that has come to us. From buying us our first instruments a decade ago to managing our lives on tour. We have so much support surrounding us.”
This makes me sad, and I miss you is made to sort through the wreckage that comes with growing up inside a loud, supportive, loving, heartbreaking world. It’s for late-night memory spirals. For childhood rooms you no longer sleep in. For apologies never sent and the people you cried with on Valentine’s Day.
A bunch of albums covered here on IDIOTEQ are about healing. But this one is about what comes before.
Read the full track-by-track commentary below.
More than you could ask for:
This song started with the guitar part and was layered originally as an instrumental. It was made to be the opening song of the album. I had a dream before finishing the demos in which the song was playing with someone singing over it. That inspired the layered vocals you hear over the song. Each line in the song represents a line from the other 10 songs in the album.
Getting old
This song is about watching the behavior of someone you’ve looked up to and realizing how wrong it is. Its the feeling of being neglected and forgotten growing up.
Negative Feedback
I wrote this song about being stuck with someone and slowly watching them give up and give in. I knew I was the problem but I would not be taking the blame. Making up any excuse for myself to put it on them, battling with words to break each other down. This song contradicts itself every line and ends in what feels like a half-assed apology.
Alone
This song is about feeling so lonely to the point I might do something I regret.The song was actually inspired from a fight between Edmee and I. We had hit a spot in our lives where we were drifting apart, and after a fight had set off I sat down and went over what was really going on. I felt a type of lonely I had never felt before
Save yourself
This song is the one I am most proud of. My writing on this song is so pure and so raw. It tackles topics I’ve never spoken on before, in a way we’ve never musically touched on before. It was the first song off the album that we produced.
Trap Door
This song is about giving up and no longer wanting to drag others down with you. When we were writing this song our sister, Giuliana, sat in to listen. We were struggling to find the beat and the drum part didn’t feel right. She was asked to sit down at the kit to help out and within minutes she had pulled the song together.
I’m a person too:
This is the oldest song on the album. I had it for years before including it on any releases. It’s very personal and touches on the fear of having children and a family of my own.We ended up having our friend Lauren jump on trumpet for the wailing line you hear at the end. Although this song was by far the most frustrating, it came out in the end as something we couldn’t be happier with.
3 Times
This was my song of defeat. After going through a few losses and feeling things I had never before, this song emerged. I had written this song right after a very overwhelming experience. It was written in the heat of the moment, before I could process my emotions and it ultimately helped me heal. I very rarely write songs like that, and that’s why it holds a special place on this album
Simple things:
This song never felt like much to us. It’s about not processing my emotions and having someone new in my life call me out on it. As we sat down to produce the song I handed Eoghan his guitar and told him to have fun with it. He turned the song into something I now love.
Wish I was fine:
This song came after Edmee and I cried to each other on Valentines day about how hard it is to love someone. After going through a difficult time earlier in life with someone leaving us, we had thought we were over it. But as we had come in and out of relationships we had realized how much this affected us. Our issues were heightened to a new level and we realized we had so much to work on. It was a very special moment that we look back on.
How strong can you last:
I had written this song about trying so hard to protect someone as my own. Feeling as though I had messed up something so good, something I sheltered and loved. This song emphasizes morality and judgement in the afterlife
