Beartooth Embrace A Newfound Freedom On ‘Pure Ecstasy’

There’s no questioning how much Pure Ecstasy means to Caleb Shomo. After recently opening up publicly about his sexuality, Beartooth’s sixth album feels like the release of years of pressure, with Shomo able to be more open about himself and put feelings into these songs that he previously wasn’t ready to share.

That freedom comes through brilliantly. Beartooth’s music has spent years documenting some incredibly dark periods of Shomo’s life, but Pure Ecstasy comes from somewhere different. There’s still plenty to unpack, but underneath it is a genuine sense of acceptance. For perhaps the first time, it feels like we’re hearing Shomo without the same weight sitting on his shoulders.

It makes Pure Ecstasy an important album, but unfortunately it doesn’t always make it a particularly strong one.

There are still flashes of Beartooth at their best. The title track gives the album a strong opening, ‘Eyes Closed’ carries some much needed weight and ‘Bullshit’ brings back some of the aggression that has always suited the band. The production throughout is enormous too, giving Shomo’s choruses plenty of room to reach for the arenas Beartooth now regularly occupy.

The problem is what happens between those moments. Too many tracks feel perfectly enjoyable while they’re playing but struggle to leave much of an impression afterwards. The riffs don’t have the same bite, some of the choruses begin to blend together and the urgency that has made Beartooth records so immediate in the past feels noticeably reduced.

That isn’t because Beartooth need to be miserable or relentlessly heavy to be good. The Surface already showed how well this band can work from a more positive place. Pure Ecstasy just doesn’t have the same collection of songs behind it. For an album carrying such a significant and personal story, musically it can feel surprisingly safe.

There’s something genuinely great about hearing Shomo reach this point in his life. Nobody should want him to return to the places that inspired some of Beartooth’s darkest music simply because those records produced great songs. Artists change because their lives change, and Pure Ecstasy captures a version of Shomo who sounds freer and more comfortable with himself.

We just wish the music surrounding that freedom was as powerful as the story behind it. Pure Ecstasy has its moments and its significance shouldn’t be understated, but judged purely as a Beartooth album, it falls short of the standard they’ve set themselves.

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