The present, however, is one of domestic bliss for Walsh. He joins Dork while looking after his daughter, enjoying some downtime before the Tigers Jaw world goes crazy once again when 'Lost on You' drops. "Day-to-day, I'm the primary caregiver," says Walsh. "We've been holding off sending her to daycare for as long as humanly possible, so when I'm not on tour, I'm with her. And when I am on tour, you know, it takes a village," he laughs.

Practically, however, now with a young family in tow, it means the band – completed by Brianna Collins (keys, vocals), Mark Lebiecki (guitar), Colin Gorman (bass) and Teddy Roberts (drums) – must be a little more judicious about what they say yes to.

"So, our upcoming US tour, we'll split it into two parts. We're away for a couple of weeks, home for a good chunk, and then back out again. Touring is very difficult for keeping things going at home. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of love and a lot of support from the people in our lives. You have to think about it a little bit differently – you have to make it count. And you have to do enough to keep propelling the band forward.

"There are different considerations nowadays than 10-15 years ago. Then it was like, I would get in the van tomorrow if you told me that we have shows. Now, it takes just a bit more preparation and coordination. It's still something we love to do, and it's still a huge part of our band. We're lucky to have a lot of great people in our lives that help make it happen."

There's that notion of time again; it's inescapable, but with a now 20-year career behind them, perhaps it's the sort of rumination that weighs heavily on the mind as the band enters another decade. In that time, Tigers Jaw have grown from scrappy underdogs to one of the most celebrated bands in the emo-punk adjacent scene. Like fellow Scranton punks the Menzingers – or more pertinently, California's Joyce Manor – Tigers Jaw have grown far beyond their punk roots while maintaining one foot solidly within that world.

"Back then, we were never looking more than like a month ahead of what we were doing," says Walsh, looking back on those formative years. "It was never more than 'What's the next show we're gonna play?' or 'How can we play in a different town in our area?'

"I guess, once I finally started playing in bands, I kind of figured music would be a part of my life, in some way, for as long as possible. But I never, ever would have imagined that starting a band in the last couple days of 2005 would have led us to so many places. And it's still exciting, too. We're rolling out this new record, and if you'd have told my 16-year-old self that that would be the case, I'd have said you're out of your mind."

Indeed, 'Lost on You' has the confidence of a record made with a couple of decades' worth of experience behind it. It's still unmistakably a Tigers Jaw record – 'Head is Like a Sinking Stone' is a prime example of how Tigers Jaw can tap into that punk urgency on demand – but continuing the growth displayed on 2017's slow burner 'Spin' and 2021's exceptional 'I Won't Care How You Remember Me'.

Here, however, cuts like 'Anxious Blade' and the moody 'Staring at Empty Faces' find the band stretching the musical muscle in bold and interesting ways, leaning heavily into alt-rock and shoegaze. That both are not just equally compelling but a couple of the strongest tracks on the record is a testament to Walsh and Collins' grasp of understanding just what Tigers Jaw could be

"If this were our second record, it would feel like, 'Oh, wow, this is too different," laughs Walsh. "But when you place it in the context of all our records, you can trace the path. In terms of different melodies or different pacing, or whatever, I think the songs are the most sonically diverse yet for a Tiger's Jaw record. But it's still quintessentially Tigers Jaw.

"I think there's some sort of intangible quality to me where we get to the end of an idea, and I'm like, 'OK, yeah, this, this feels like us.'  A couple of those songs came from unlikely places and might have been cut at an earlier stage in the past. But this time – because we gave ourselves as much time as we needed, we were able to flesh out those ideas and really make them ours."

What all this means is that we have some of the sharpest, thematically dense and cohesive Tigers Jaw songs committed to record to date. 'Light Leaks Through' – the most Tigers Jaw of Tigers Jaw songs on the record – finds Walsh once again reinforcing the album's past, present and future identity.

"The version of the person that you miss does not exist," pleads Walsh in an absolute gut punch of a chorus. It's a strong sentiment, with a beautiful rhythm – and even if you only have a passing acquaintance with a Tigers Jaw song, you can hear it in your head.

"I was talking something through with a friend, and it's about romanticising something that isn't there. Like looking for the greatest version of this thing that doesn't exist. So, it's about hitting you with the idea that it's time to move on and to figure out how to move forward.

"After that conversation, I was struck that it's a really compelling line. The more I worked on it, the more it developed its own cadence. I was like, 'I need to integrate this into a song'. It's become one of my favourite tracks on the record – and it's definitely one of those tracks that has enough familiarity to some of our older stuff, but also steps in a different direction with tonality. I think it shows how some of the creative decisions on this record are a little bit more indicative of what we're doing now versus where we came from."

Which, in keeping with the theme of 'Lost on You', almost brings us full circle. With so much of the record preoccupied with notions of former or future you, how do you reconcile yourself as an artist living in the here and now with a legacy or a canon of work? Is there much space for reflection or introversion?

Some bands, for example, will plant that stick in the ground and move onto the next project, confident that the body of songs truly represents the band at that moment in time. Others – and the aforementioned Joyce Manor are the masters of this – see the past as something that can be rearranged – a chance to correct course and treat the songs as something that can be revisited and reworked. Just see the likes of 'Tame', 'NBTSA' or the appropriately titled 'Don't It Seem Like We've Been Here Before' for Exhibits A, B and C. All of them build upon what's gone before, reinterpreting the source material for the band's current style.

For Tigers Jaw, the records serve as a history – a snapshot of the band in that moment – not that Walsh isn't reflective on this, too:

"You know, I have definitely thought, 'Man, if I were writing that song nowadays, I'd do it very differently'. Like, each passing year, you learn more about yourself, you experience more, you take in more worldly influences, more musical influences.

"But at the same time, I try to be proud of what I created at the time. Listening back to my 17-year-old voice is not my favourite thing to do. I wish I had warmed up a little bit before I sang that. Or I wish I had drunk a lot of water and got my eight hours of sleep.

"But there's also a purity to that. There's a rawness to it. Like, I knew as much as I knew up until that point, and I made the record that I could make. And that's what keeps happening over and over again, and each time is hopefully another step up. You keep trying to move forward, and you keep trying to improve."

With 'Lost on You', Tigers Jaw have done just that. As a marker, it's proof positive that Scranton's finest are still the best genre-bending emo/pop-punk/indie-rock band around. They're a little more world-weary and a touch more pensive – but they wear the scars of growth well…

Tigers Jaw's album ‘Lost on You’ is out now.