REVIEW: Beartooth - Pure Ecstasy
- Lysandre Pons
- 11 minutes ago
- 6 min read
There is a moment when surviving is no longer enough. For years, BEARTOOTH has made a career out of turning pain into something loud enough to shake a room. But Pure Ecstasy feels different, built like a brutal yet beautiful reckoning. This isn't simply another album about making it through the darkness. It is about standing on the other side of it, looking back at everything that almost broke you and telling people who you really are now that the fight is finally over. That makes it perhaps the most revealing album from the band yet.
It stands as their sixth album and first release with Fearless Records. Across 11 tracks, we see different sides of the same person come out: ferocity and vulnerability, swagger and self-reckoning, despair and exhilaration. It is an album where hope and wreckage are allowed to coexist. And perhaps the biggest turn is that Caleb Shomo no longer sounds like he's carrying all that weight alone.
The title track, Pure Ecstasy, is more of a declaration of intent than an intro. It lets you know that this isn't going to be business as usual. It begins unsuspected, with Shomo's voice showing restraint while a deep guitar slowly approaches, growing heavier and louder until the song finally blows up. The chorus hits with the force of the emotional screams, combining the crushing weight of metalcore and deathcore with an unexpectedly lyrical quality. It feels like we were holding a breath and then finally were breathing again when someone opened a door. Shomo explains the song's origins as: "Pure Ecstasy was birthed in a studio with Misha Mansoor, ridiculous loudspeakers, and the dumbest heaviest chugs we could chug." After the track was developed and produced further with Jordan Fish, the decision to make it the opener became obvious.
Eyes Closed follows by being as straightforward as can be. It is a hard-hitting anthem built around punchy rhythms, thick down-tuned guitars and a chorus designed to be screamed back from a festival crowd. Yet melodic guitar lines and surprising pop vibes keep the track from becoming expected. It carries a sense of release that can be felt through like a hand outreaching the listener. Written from the ground up with Fish, the song seems to allow the band to discover and test out just how much room there is to play outside its usual boundaries.
Then comes Bullshit, which feels like a merger between the old and new BEARTOOTH. It is in your face, catchy and furious with a frustration we can all relate to. The layers of voices throughout the chorus feel like we already are part of the song, singing along to it. If it may feel more familiar to long time fans, Beautiful Again shows that we should be ready to be surprised still. There is a nostalgic, almost emo feel to the track, but its greatest strength is its restraint. The melody and singing feel more fragile, carrying an emotional weight that the band's heaviest moments sometimes doesn’t allow. "Beautiful Again was the first song written during the sessions with Jordan after we wrote Free a few months prior" Shomo explains. Fish pushed him to write directly about what he was experiencing rather than hiding behind a metaphor. The result, Shomo says "perfectly depicts the duality of his headspace while writing the album. Pure joy and pure despair, nothing in between."
Stadiums takes that emotional openness and turns it into something theatrical. It begins with a distorted voice and booming piano before the guitars and bass crash in. The song feels simultaneously like a confession and a declaration of intent, moving between spoken passages, enormous buildups, breakdowns and aggressive screams. There is an almost cinematic sense of movement, as though Shomo is putting both his on and off stage personalities side by side to make them one again.
But the emotional centre of the record may be Free. Cracking emotions open after Shomo's public coming out, it hits even harder and allows a community to also gather around to protect that newfound freedom. The song shifts between screams and melody without ever feeling like it is manufacturing vulnerability for effect. It feels exposed. "The song is the start of the next chapter of my music and my life" Shomo says. "Free is the most honest depiction of my soul I will most likely ever make." That laid open approach comes through most strongly in the final scream. It isn't polished, it sounds raw, like someone finally allowing everything they've been holding back to come out at once.
Just when the record seems to have established its emotional language, Sorry throws another curveball. It opens almost like an R&B track, with electronic beats and textures underneath. Then one enormous scream brings the rest of the band crashing into the mix. It is sassy, unapologetic and funnily sharp. It shows a version of BEARTOOTH that has stopped worrying about whether every creative decision will make sense to everyone else.
Lose You to Find Me pushes that even further and makes what is likely to be the most accessible song on the opus. It combines a lot of elements we would not necessarily expect, such as a pop rock groove built around a sugary and catchy melody. But also flashes of 80s hair metal influence, a flashy guitar solo, while also sometimes feeling like a TWENTY ONE PILOTS song. Puritans might clench their pearls as it is a lot to process, but it also is easy to love if you remain open to surprises.
Then You arrives and reminds everyone that the band has not gone soft one bit. Its R&B inspired opening makes the song drop even more crushing. Shomo moves rapidly between rapping, singing and screaming, while blast beats and relentless vocals propel the track into the heaviest song on the album. It is even more effective because of its contrast. Some of its heaviest breakdowns sit against some of its softest passages, making both extremes hit harder. The R&B elements periodically returning, interrupting the aggression just enough to make the next wave feel even more violent. This is the kind of song that throws a bomb into any pit.
For Me by Me is comparatively languid, allowing the guitars and bass to carry much of its power. It doesn't need to to crash out to make an impression, instead showing that heaviness and meaning can be found in slowing down.
And then comes I Made It. The album closer begins with what sounds like a camcorder footage, immediately giving the song a very personal and almost documentary feel. It is looking backwards while trying to understand how to proudly stand in the present. Unlike Free, where vulnerability comes wrapped with some fear and uncertainty, I Made It comes from a place of relief. The music is lighter and more playful, with a relaxed rock and pop feel. It sounds like someone who has finally been able to put down some of the weight they've been carrying. But it still doesn't pretend that reaching the other side magically erases everything that came before. There is still doubt. There is still pain in those final moments, but it is carried with hope.
Pure Ecstasy is different because it’s collaborative and open. Fish's involvement brings a new dimension to the band's songwriting and production, while drummer Connor Denis plays on every track. It marks the first BEARTOOTH album where Shomo didn't perform every instrument himself. The album feels less like documenting a struggle entirely on his own and more like other people helping him work through it. So while previous BEARTOOTH records often sounded like survival, this one is more interested in what happens afterwards. And even showing that there is an afterwards to look forward to will make the world of a difference for a lot of people out there that are still struggling or having to hide. It reminds us that we are not alone and that there are things worth celebrating. That evolving does not mean losing who we were but rather starting to put fractured parts back together. This new chapter of becoming is something to look forward to taking part in with the band going on tour to share it massively through the Pure Ecstasy World Tour that kicks off September 17th in Europe.
Score: 8/10
Pure Ecstasy was released on 28th August 2026 via Fearless Records.
Words: Lysandre Pons
Photos: Ashley Osborn
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