snag.'s 'All The Cages Holding Us Will One Day Turn To Dust' is a Cathartic Triumph of DIY Screamo
snag. have spent years as what Stereogum called “DIY screamo warriors from Milwaukee,” and their Deathwish, Inc. debut captures “the anxiety of living in the end times, expressed with vivid and visceral immediacy.” The trio — Samm Szymborski (guitar/vocals), Bryan Wysocki (drums/vocals), and Peter Murphy (bass/vocals) — cut these eleven tracks live to tape in three days with engineer Nick Elert, then overdubbed vocals later after a studio power outage forced their hand. You can hear all of that history in the grain.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Live-to-tape means the rhythm section is one organism. Wysocki and Murphy lock into surges that swell and collapse together, and because everyone in the band screams, the low-end and the vocals trade the job of being the heaviest thing in the room.
The Spatial Dynamics: The bravest choice here is air. “Juneberry” lets pedal steel and horns drift through the wreckage like light through a broken window, and “Paris, WI” strips down to a piano ballad — Americana flourishes that make the loud parts land twice as hard.
Standout Performance
The band as a single instrument. Three-way vocals, three days, no grid — the record breathes like a basement show where everyone already knows the words.
Why It’s Certified
Opener “Unarrest Me” sets the stakes and closer “Cages (Reprise)” pays them off, bookends on a record that actually thinks like an album. Lead single “Debilitated” does the full snag. arc — Stereogum described its “fiery wreckage before melodies and dynamics emerge,” and that’s the band in one sentence. Screamo with this much heart doesn’t come along often. Certified great.