Still over a month away from its November 9th release date, the newest crushing self-titled record from Milwaukee based noisy screamo act SNAG is finally off the leash! We have teamed up with the trio of hard-working DIY labels and the band to give you its exclusive first listen, along with the full track by track breakdown and full insights about the record! Check it out below and share, cause this beast is an eye-opener!
With a number of movements and artists that have joined forces to reclaim the dialogue around climate change, it feels great to see some hardcore punk bands to join the fight and work together with some likeminded DIY record labels to raise awareness of the issue. The effects of a changing climate are catastrophic for both humans and animals, and despite the fact that, in the words of Greta Thunberg, “change is coming whether you like it or not”, there are still relatively easy actions we can take. Waste less food, eat less factory-farmed red meat, consume less energy and water, and more difficult ones: volunteer, open a dialogue, find common ground, and trust the freakin’ science! Our actions will influence the planet for the coming decades, for better or for worse, and every occasion to remind us about it is precious. The newest offering from SNAG makes us stop, think, and be stunned in a state of frenzy wonder.
SNAG formed in August of 2016 and played their first show in February 2017. The band’s first self-titled EP was released in May of 2017, and was followed by a split with Social Caterpillar (Milwaukee) in December 2017 and a split with Swallows Nest (New Zealand) in June 2018. This record marks their first full length and, like their EP, it’s self-titled.
The band has been compared to Loma Prieta, Suis La Lune, and City of Caterpillar, and have played shows with the likes of Majority Rule, Portrayal of Guilt, Jeromes Dream, and Infant Island, among many others.
Pre-orders for “SNAG” are available from tomorrow, September 24, from Dasein, Middle-Man, and Zegema Beach Records (USA + Canada/International!
This is a record about hope and despair. Self immolation and lights in the dark. Starving, drowning, waiting for an instant of calamity amid a decades-long collapse. / SNAG
Milwaukee’s SNAG are fucking pissed about climate change, and we hope you are too. This is a 9-song LP rooted in change, resistance and screamy hardcore. The three piece have been evolving since 2016 and this collection of songs showcase the individuals’ talents (each member tackles an instrument in addition to vocal duties) as well as their collective entity, and do so in exemplary fashion. For fans of early 2000s screamo and revolution. / Zegema Beach Records
Recorded and mixed at Humdrum studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by Kevin Dixon on March 29, 30, and 31. Mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios.
1) Flowers in the Springtime (for David Buckel) + 2) Fire Escape
Back in April of 2018, an attorney in New York named David Buckel doused himself in gasoline and self-immolated in Prospect Park to protest fossil fuels and inaction on climate change. I became somewhat fixated on this around then, and it inspired the lyrics of Flowers in the Springtime (for David Buckel) and Fire Escape. To my knowledge, his was the first self-immolation in protest of climate change but I don’t think it will be the last.
3) Foam Cup pt. II
Foam Cup pt. II just premiered on Captured Howlst with an accompanying video made by Sam who sings and plays guitar. The song is about the experience of watching a box of styrofoam cups fall off the back of a truck and get obliterated on the freeway and knowing those ever shrinking pieces would of course eventually make their way into the food system and blood stream of all of us like so many millions before them. for as much power as any of us has to enact change, it’s sure hard not to feel powerless sometimes.
4) The Only Rational Response
We debuted The Only Rational Response on Independence Day in the US and are donating all the money from downloads of that song to an immigrant rights organization here in Milwaukee, Voces De La Frontera. A local paper, the Shepherd Express, wrote about that here. The song is about the tension between wanting to take action against all the fucked up things that are happening and the competing desire to stay safe or to look away from those things.
5) Morning
Side B – Morning is a palate cleanser to end side one.
6) Colony Collapse
Colony Collapse is about the bees. If they go, we go. And they’re going.
7) i n t o t h e f o r e s t
i n t o t h e f o r e s t attempts to lay out two paths. Again there’s this tension embedded between a sense of what’s right and a sense of what’s possible.
8) Hunger Stone
Hunger Stone was inspired by the discovery of stones in the Elbe River in Czech Republic where people carved warnings about starvation and drought the last time the water was that low as long ago as 1417.
9) Waiting (We’ll Starve)
There’s a lot of talk about end times and, rightfully, a lot of accompanying anxiety. But also, there are a lot of possibilities if we were to simply do something different. Well, why wait? The song Waiting (We’ll Starve) is about the myth of the “end of the world” being an instantaneous calamity when instead it’s happening around us all the time. And suggests, hopefully, that another life is within reach.
Here’s what some folks said about SNAG in the past:
Best Song 2018: “Violence” by snag. – Open Mind / Saturated Brain
Snag come firing out of the woodwork on this split with some of the heaviest, most neck-snapping riffs I have ever heard. Within the first minute, they’ve entered a bone-chilling build-up, based around the unsettling mantra “and we eat our young”, which culminates in a swelling chaos of apocalyptic proportions. The bass hits as heavy as a steamroller, with dissonant guitars noisily chipping away at the foundation. This track offers an intense sonic journey, which recalls one of the all-time greats, City Of Caterpillar. This is the soundtrack to a world ending not with a bang or a whimper, but a full-fledged forest fire with no end in sight. I’m not sure what else needs to be said about this song, it absolutely floored me when I heard it, and am fully anticipating the same reaction from most of you. This is what I love so much about modern screamo, how “progressively familiar” it can be. It’s a distinct genre that creative bands are still finding ways to set the bar in. – Sophie’s Floorboard
Snag is amazing, plain and simple. Playing a disjointed and throwback (think early to mid-2000s) style of screamy hardcore, they focus almost primarily on environmental issues, something that I tend to do the same with with my own lyrics. They are truly a talented and progressive band looking to make a difference. – Open Mind / Saturated Brain
It feels fitting if you’re a fan of artists from Loma Prieta to Suis La Lune…You can hear and really feel an onslaught of dread like inherent in the concept of climate anxiety enacted by the ongoing changes that the environment is undergoing — and at the same time, there’s a steady stream of “beauty,” like a representation of the human perspective trying to find a place to rest their head in the midst of the noise. – Captured Howls
“This is the most original sounding and message driven music I’ve ever heard come out of Milwaukee. I really wish I had more to say about it, but sometimes, there is beauty in simplicity.”- Bottomed Out’s top releases of 2017
“You have to listen to this EP with attention to get the atmosphere of the whole release. An impressive first release by this new band.”- XclusivX
Holy fuck am I ever stoked on this band. Hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin Snag play a brand of slightly unhinged punk that reminded me of bands like Loma Prieta or even Rorschach for those of you who remember those guys. Snag is their self titled debut EP which came out May 2nd and should not be missed, 6 songs jam packed with riffs and lyrics that actually convey a message unlike so many of today’s metal and hardcore bands who sing about trivial things or fantasy. I haven’t known about these guys for very long but I can say without a doubt that I’ll be jamming the hell out of this EP for a long time. Don’t sleep on this. / Barren Blog
Scroll down for the lyrics:
1. Flowers in the Springtime (for David Buckel)
By daybreak, they pulled a shopping
cart full of gasoline
into the park
Before dawn, in the dark, on the lawn
there was a spark: a lit fuse of
burning flesh.
And notes in folders to the press
So the bad news they had left
Made the rounds but faded fast.
When the sun rose it was ignored
The system stops for nothing
It chews and chews and chews
chews and chews
but never
swallows
wasted away
I tried to tell you
2. Fire Escape
I hear you crying
on the fire
escape
You light a match
and then you
throw it away
when you’re alone
at the end of the
day
try and fight the
urge to
self immolate
i don’t forgive you what i gave you
3. Foam Cup pt. II
I saw a box of styrofoam cups
split open on the freeway,
dropped and demolished by trucks.
Brake lights blossomed but no one
stopped.
The f l o a t i n g white shards
looked like seagulls
dipping and diving on an open
artery
and I crushed them with my car
into tinier and tinier bits that floated away into the sun
would one day
make it to my bloodstream.
where are you going?
4. The Only Rational Response
I want to break down every border
I want to open every cage
I want to pull down every statue
And plant roses in their place
But i’ve been trying to
keep my body clean
I’ve been trying to
keep my mind empty
because
i don’t want to think
about what’s justice.
i don’t want to think
about the future.
It’s not my responsibility
and I don’t want to have
another break down
i don’t want to have
another freak outwhere did we go
wrong? where did
we go wrong? where
did we go wrong?
where did we go
wrong? where did
we go wrong? where
did we go wrong?
5. Morning
6. Colony Collapse
Fewer bees,
and telephones
with bigger
screens,
and pesticides.
The more that I
learn,
the more I believe
the earth is a
corpse laid at our
feet.
We’ve gone away. The
comb crumbling away.
7. i n t o t h e f o r e s t
8. Hunger Stone
All we loved and all
we dreamed is dust.
If you see me, weep.
If again you see
this stone, so you
too shall weep.
So shallow was the
water
in fourteen
seventeen.
9. Waiting (We’ll Starve)
I can’t wait for tonight
I can’t wait for a new life
I can’t wait for somewhere
to be alive
a car wreck. a jumper.
a selfish final act.
We’ll starve with water in
our lungs waiting for the end.
