Photo Credit: Milton Crisp
Talking about death has sort of become taboo in America.
We don’t like to think about it, and most of us unknowingly shove it into the deep recesses of our minds, pretending like our time will never actually come. But last year, the topic of death became difficult to avoid when the pandemic shut down the country and forced many to distance themselves from friends and family, instilling a lingering sense of dread and uncertainty.
Milwaukee screamo band Snag—a group that’s no stranger to speaking its mind about climate change and state violence anxieties—drew upon that feeling of dread and loneliness that the quarantine so generously offered and produced the band’s most cohesive and refined release yet.
Death Doula, the band’s second full-length album, is an 18-minute descent into chaos that spans a total of seven songs. Eponymously named after one whose role it is to assist the dying with non-medical needs, the record follows the trajectory of a person who initially struggles with the fact that they will one day die, but eventually comes to terms with the inevitable. Whether that conclusion is a peaceful one or not is ambiguously left open at the album’s close.
“The last year was rife with images of death and the threat of death—there was just a lot of bad stuff, you know?” says bassist Peter Murphy. “A death doula is someone who helps prepare another person for death and if there’s a narrative for the album, it follows along a path of being extremely resistant to dying to sort of coming to terms that death isn’t necessarily the end -- its a stage.”
Climate-Core?
Murphy is joined in Snag by bandmates Sam Szymborski on guitar and Bryan Wysocki on drums with all three members sharing vocal duties. In the past, Snag has sort of jokingly defined itself as a “climate-core” band. Early songs have included audio samples of television news clips about oil fracking and lyrics that express concern for a planet that is suffering. And so in a way, singing about climate change became a novelty quality of Snag’s music.
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But with Death Doula, Snag has effectively shown that it’s not just “that band that sings about climate change.” Instead, Snag offers a look at the other side of the coin—how it feels to be burnt out, scared and unsure about what to do next when it comes to the causes that we fight for. Snag’s music has become an embodiment of what it means to fight for something and that includes all of the unpleasant aspects as well.
“The attitude and disposition that allows certain humans to treat the planet as a commodity to be exploited is the same attitude that corrodes a lot of other areas of society,” Murphy says. “This sort of intersectionality has led us to other directions (in our songwriting).”
Message of Hope
But there’s a message of hope hidden within the album as well. When the smoke clears and the battle is won, the work still isn’t over -- the community must pick up the pieces and rebuild. That message is most evident in the song “Heirloom,” where Wysocki sings, “And when our hands crack/From breaking down the barriers ... A friendly smile can save a life/A warm heart can melt a million cold souls.” It’s a message that has rung especially true throughout the pandemic, where friendships and familial relationships were strained.
“For me, it was just focusing on sticking together as friends during a time of turmoil,” Wysocki says. “Some of those lyrics had to do with the protests that were going on as well and how all our stomachs are kind of in knots from all of the tension.”
Snag not only transcends its self-inflicted genre in terms of lyrical subject matter, but the musicality on this release is exponentially more complex than anything the band has released before. A very noticeable difference is the way in which Murphy steps into the role of conductor with his bass lines. From a frantic heartbeat bridge part in “Weathervane” to supplying the low end of the rattling breakdown chords in “Heirloom” and “Purgatory,” it truly feels like Murphy stands out on his own on this new album as opposed to just playing the role of the backbone.
There are moments when Szymborksi and Murphy layer catchy riffs over one another, and the dynamic feels more like a duo of guitars rather than a bass backing up a guitar. And that’s part of the reason that Death Doula feels like the band’s best effort yet —each member of Snag has dialed in on their role in the band— with Murphy’s aforementioned control and leadership on the bass to Szymborski’s simultaneously melodic and frenetic guitar leads and Wysocki’s impressive screaming range, heavy cymbal smashing and reliance of the popcorn snare. The band continues to do what it does well—creating music that blends the chaos of late ‘90s and early 2000s screamo music with the sentimentalities of Midwest emo, but has effectively honed-in on its sound and slapped on its own label.
Dynamic Shifts
For an album that was written partly before the pandemic and partly during, the flow of the songs feels very natural. There are so many dynamic shifts throughout the album that it starts to feel like the anxiety-ridden mental tennis match of someone who might actually be pondering what it means to die, yet never feels like it jumps around too much. There’s even a soft half-way point intermission featuring brass instruments yet it fits right in, even though it paves the way for the heaviest songs on the album.
It’ a duality that Snag seems to have experimented with on its debut full-length, but executed masterfully this time around. That flow is also accompanied by the reading of a poem called “Death Doula of the Apocalypse,” written and read by Sevan Arabajian-Lawson. Bits and pieces of the poem are sprinkled throughout, acting almost as a narrative guide.
The new album truly feels like a milestone in the band’s career to date. In a way, it dons the role of the metaphorical death doula for the band, successfully helping Snag to break off from its past life and allowing it to journey to the next stage -- where, if the band keeps up what it accomplished in these seven songs, its likely to garner quite a bit of attention in the larger punk community.
Snag celebrates the release of Death Doula, currently available on Spotify and bandcamp, with a show at Cactus Club on July 24. Also performing is Social Caterpillar, Scathed, Pleasure Thief and DJ sets from Sahan Jayasuriya. The show begins at 9 p.m. and admission is $10 in advance, or $15 day of the show.
