Tough cookies: How pop group Le Sserafim overcame band tensions and internet trolls

The pop graveyard is full of bands who fell out, melted down and broke up.

British boyband Five split after their backstage arguments escalated into fist fights. A row about a jacket sparked All Saints deciding to part ways. Oasis took a 16-year hiatus after Liam Gallagher threw a plum at his brother Noel.

But it's rare to hear a group talk about resolving their problems. So I've a huge amount of admiration for the latest album by Korean girl group Le Sserafim.

Sitting in the middle of the tracklist is a song called Need Your Company, which details the history of friction between New York-born member Huh Yunjin, and her bandmate Kim Chaewon.

"Is friendship all just for show?" they sing over a melancholy guitar line. "I really wanna trust you... no matter how you hurt me."

"I wanted to talk about that weird, complicated mix of emotions where you want to be close to someone but it's physically hard for you to admit it," says Yunjin, on a call from Le Sserafim's record label offices in Seoul.

"There are times when you doubt your own emotions, like, 'Oh, am I the only one who wants to be this intimate? Are they not committed to this relationship?'"

Chaewon – who is absent from our interview as she recovers from a neck injury – has attributed the song's angst to communication problems, rather than personal animosity.

"If you look at the lyrics, you might think it's a conflict, but people are just different, you know?" she told the Korean talk show Lee Mu-jin Service. "There was a time spent adjusting to those differences."

"Sometimes saying, 'you hurt me', can sound harsh," Yunjin explained in the album's liner notes, "but it can also mean I care enough about us that I want things to get better."

"The things that were hard for each other... There was a time we talked openly and worked through it," Chaewon explained. "And we actually got closer, to be honest."

So close, in fact, that the singers ultimately chose to pair up for a terrifying, 233-metre tandem bungee jump from China's Macau tower.

The maturity it takes to confront big interpersonal problems is rare - but it's also a hallmark of Le Sserafim's take on K-pop, which mixes serious self-awareness with playful absurdity.

The band, completed by Miyawaki Sakura, Nakamura Kazuha and Hong Eunchae, debuted in 2022, with sophisticated, bass-heavy dance tracks like Antifragile and Unforgiven.

Their name is an anagram of the phrase "I'm Fearless", and those early songs channelled the girl group trope of combative, bulletproof confidence.

But their resolve was tested by a particularly nasty online