Beartooth - Below

Tracklist:

Below

Devastation

The Past Is Dead

Fed Up

Dominate

No Return

Phantom Pain

Skin

Hell Of It

I Won’t Give It Up

The Answer

The Last Riff

So ex-Attack Attack! Vocalist Caleb Shomo formed a band called Beartooth when he left them due to living with depression back in 2012, since then his career has just absolutely skyrocketed, I can vouch for them as when I caught them at Download their set was absolutely ferocious. 3 albums deep now we’re having a 4th, what greedy people we are but I’m taking as much as I can get.

“Devastation” dropped, I say dropped but I mean more like it hit me in the face at great force, very high octane and aggressive with a slick little melodic chorus, building up to an absolutely filthy breakdown. And then came “The Past is Dead” starts us off with the trademark call and response vocals building to a somewhat catchy chorus only I feel let down by the call and response vocals detracting from what otherwise is a fantastic song, they aren’t bad, just a tad cliche and I feel you could beef this track up a bit more without them, but it will grow on you because i wasn’t too phased on the first listen. “The Hell of It” completely struck me with a surprise shot, the way that aggression was building through the verses it sets up perfectly for one of their huge melodic choruses, oh no though my friends they drop the tone and ring out this weird deep twangy riff and the vocals get even harsher and use group vocals to respond to Shomo’s growls, quite unexpected but really pays off. “Fed Up” captures the mental state of the whole world in these strange times, back to the usual structure of crunchy verse building to a remarkably gorgeously sang chorus, that riff though is a high octane electro sounding beast which blew me back in awe. Title track “Below” is the album opener and starts us off in the best direction with a lovely twangy heavy riff before Schomo takes over and provides his dynamic vocals to lyrics regarding to being trapped in a personal hell not seeing how things can get much worse, think we can all relate to this. “No Return” is the epitome of everything I adore about Beartooth, amazingly gorgeous chorus and in the verses those growls and riffs could tear your head off, “Skin” is similar being relatable with the theme about being uncomfortable in your own skin, very powerful lyrically but generally softer and just crunchy with that bass and guitar work, one of my personal favourites.

Another very successful outing for Beartooth, they have yet to disappoint me with a single release they’ve done, it’s very clear that this music means everything to them, equal balance of relatable material but also a lot of positive uplifting tune, these guys are contenders for festival headliners one day if you ask me, watch this space.

[8/10]