Beartooth

Caleb Shomo first turned the pain of his struggle with mental health and self-image into music in 2013. Beartooth began as a living document, a diary, a journal of repressed rage and depression. Alone in his basement studio, screaming and singing, playing all the instruments, and self-producing a batch of furious but melodic songs filled with reflection and confession, the Ohio native stared into the abyss, initially with no intention of returning to the heavy music world that burned him as a teen.

Over a decade later, the different pieces of his body of work connect in title, sound, and spirit. As the frontman hit 30, Beartooth’s fifth album, The Surface, completed this era in 2023. Even more importantly, it kicked off a new chapter filled with surprising optimism and just as honest. Depression is a sick, disgusting, aggressive disease below the surface. Caleb stood ready to bask in the light.

The other records were about hanging on for dear life. The Surface is a declaration that Caleb is ready to do more than survive. BEARTOOTH began as both bomb and balm, an outright refusal to suffer in silence. The band weaponized a radio-ready bombast and delivered raw emotion mixed with noise-rock chaos. Other bands play the “devastating riffs and catchy hooks” game, but this music is the difference between life and death, and now, a kind of life after death while still here. The band Forbes sees “inching towards a tipping point of becoming the latest arena headliner” is now even closer.