Caleb Shomo built Beartooth out of an Ohio basement in 2013, and for most of the band’s life that basement never really left the music. Every record carried some version of the same fight, a guy screaming his way through depression and self-loathing until the songs became the only place he could put it down. It worked. Hated went gold, In Between went platinum, and 2023’s The Surface debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative and Hard Music charts. But there’s only so long a person can live in that basement before something has to give.
Pure Ecstasy, the band’s sixth album and first for Fearless Records, is the sound of Shomo climbing out of it.
That doesn’t mean the record went soft. The title track opens the album with the same heavy, repetitive low end Beartooth has always leaned on, but the lyrics land clearer than usual, less like a diary entry and more like someone finally saying the thing out loud. “Bullshit” goes to the darkest place on the record, with Shomo naming the exact thoughts that used to just sit underneath his songs instead of inside them. It’s not a comfortable listen, and it isn’t supposed to be. That’s still Beartooth doing what Beartooth does best.
Where the album separates itself is in how much room it gives itself to move. “Eyes Closed” is the clearest example, a chorus that builds into a genuine crescendo before dropping into a breakdown built for a room full of people losing their minds. The line “trying to fly with no halo” sums up the whole record’s tension in five words, wanting to be free of something without pretending you’re clean. “Stadiums” takes the biggest swing, opening with a stretch that almost sounds like a mistake before it turns out to be intentional, building slowly into something closer to cinematic than anything Beartooth has put out before. You can hear Jordan Fish’s fingerprints there. Fish, who’s worked with Bring Me The Horizon, Poppy, and Architects, clearly pushed Shomo past his usual instincts, but the record never sounds like it’s being steered by someone else. It still sounds like Beartooth, just wider.
“Free” was always going to be the song people argued about, and the comment sections proved it the second it dropped. It’s the most straightforwardly melodic thing here, and longtime fans weren’t shy about saying so. Hearing it inside the full album context makes more sense of it though. It isn’t a detour, it’s the thesis. And judging by how people talk about it live, “FIRE” seems to be the general consensus once the song leaves the studio version behind.
The middle stretch is where the record hits hardest as a listen straight through. “Sorry” opens with maybe the best intro on the whole album and closes with a scream that earns it. “Lose You To Find Me” eases in soft before turning into something that could’ve soundtracked a movie two decades ago, in the best way. “You” is the angriest thing here, all attitude until the chorus turns that anger into something closer to a release. Fans were already calling the singles four for four before the album even landed, and the tracklist backs that up.
By the time it gets to “For Me By Me” and closer “I Made It,” the record has earned its quieter moments. Shomo’s voice carries “For Me By Me” almost on its own before the instruments catch up, and “I Made It” ends things on the closest thing to peace Beartooth has ever allowed itself, guitars still present but not fighting for the last word.
Pure Ecstasy isn’t the heaviest Beartooth record, and it’s not trying to be. What it is, is the most honest one about what comes after the pain instead of just the pain itself. Shomo spent over a decade turning suffering into a message in a bottle. This is the first time it sounds like he’s actually made it to shore.
Pure Ecstasy is out August 28, 2026, via Fearless Records.
I’m Drew, the founder and editor of Front of the Stage. I have a strong love for music and photography, which started at a very young age. There’s just something I love about experiencing live music and capturing memories that will last a lifetime, and that’s how Front of the Stage came to be.
