“A hope, but it’s stagnant in a dream. A life, but it’s trapped under a guise.”
Since their inception a decade ago, Milwaukee natives snag. have been a uniquely iconoclastic act on the heavy music scene. The self-described ‘climate-core’ proponents have offered a searing look at the climate crisis that thrashes, screams and laments in the face of quieter alternatives. Their sound is a singular space somewhere between Blackbraid’s violent intensity and First and Forever’s melodic emocore.
Whilst many in their scene now look to move towards mainstream recognition, the band have instead moved evermore towards the fringes. Recorded over the course of three days last year, their latest LP, All the Cages Holding Us Will One Day Turn To Dust, their first on new label Deathwish Inc., is anything but simple. It’s part emo battle cry against ecological disaster, part violent backlash to chronic illness and mental health stigma. In short, it’s eleven tracks of rude, crude and emotional music that will set crowds giddy and moshpits wild this summer.
Opener “Unarrest Me” lulls the listener into a false sense of security with an American Football-style Midwest emo opening before crashing into the band’s usual harsh and unforgiving sound. Peter Murphy riles into action, screaming “Wrists tied and I’m panicking / Face down, and I’m panicking” whilst taut drums from Bryan Wysocki scrabble and clash and Sam Szymborski’s guitar and Murphy’s bass career into each other like a pile-up.
It winds up into lead single “Debilitated“’s eclipse-like descent into distortion. A terrifyingly beautiful breakdown in musical form, Murphy’s vocal practically melts like silicone under a heat lamp on top of fast thrashing, apocalyptic guitar from Szymborski in its particularly dark chorus: “And it shouldn’t have been so long / My body aches / (When I hold the tension)”. Far and away, it’s the best track on the album.
By contrast, the halfway-point “Juneberry” is a sobering guitar piece infused with horns, pedal steel and the slow build of the jagged voice of Murphy. Similarly, its immediate neighbour, “Whisper“, is like Sigur Rós doing screamo – their unlimited and yet so fearful. Wysocki’s drums work overtime, powering through, chopping and then ripping into hardcore punk drumming, though it lacks the anger of say, Welcome the Plague Year.
But this switch comes with a compromise; the preceding tracks carry away some of the tension from those opening moments of emotional fire. “Self Life“, for instance, feels too much like a pale imitation of bands like Acers or Deafheaven, the wide open production masking a lack of fresh fuel for the flames. The instruments muddy in the texture, the cymbals splashing against Szymborski’s guitar and burying the bass.
Thankfully, “Cages” and its soundscape of a reprise make sure the album ends on a high note. The two tracks are one last choppy fight for survival before collapsing exhausted into nothingness, melody clawing from the depths of his emotional hell, Murphy’s bass swallowing him up, finally buried under echo, synth pads and static. Despite the upgrade, it’s admirable that snag. have kept the grit and depth that made them such a singular voice in hardcore music. If this is the record that finally puts them on the map, it’s long overdue.
