BEARTOOTH Surprise-Releases New Single 'Riptide'

BEARTOOTH has surprised-released a brand new single, "Riptide". The accompanying music video sees frontman and main songwriter Caleb Shomo sharing the stage with a group of interpretative dancers.

Shomo stated about the track: "'Riptide' is about trying to start a new chapter in life and trying to stop focusing on all of the negative things that have been surrounding my life for quite some time and me focusing on being healthier, happier, and having a better time with my life."

The lyrics to "Riptide" include such lines as: "I'm done explaining my pain / This is way too much / I wanna feel euphoria / Give me the rush / Cause it's the last time that I romanticize / The riptide that's trying to drown me."

Shomo told NME that "as much as I love [2021's 'Below' album] and it was important for my life and my career, it was absolutely the most depressing and sad piece of work I've ever done. [On 'Riptide'] I wanted to do something to get me out of that headspace. I wanted to make something really fun, that makes you happy and isn 't really fucking sad. I basically made BEARTOOTH's version of a dance song… This is a whole new thing for Beartooth and it 's pretty wild. If I wasn't nervous, though, then I'd know this isn 't the right song for us to release. It 's really important for where BEARTOOTH is heading."

Despite the fact that "Riptide" is a BEARTOOTH version of a pop song, Shomo told NME that he is "still writing plenty of heavy shit" for the new album. "It's still going to be a rock record but I'm trying to push the boundaries as far as I can go and dive deeper into what I love about each facet of BEARTOOTH. There's no need to be scared of taking it too far."

The 29-year-old frontman, who writes, performs, records and mixes everything that goes into BEARTOOTH's albums, elaborated on the musical direction of the band's new material in an interview with the WSOU 89.5 FM radio station, saying: "I'm trying to kind of push myself in a lot of ways, try new things that I've never tried before, try and show off different parts of my voice that I haven't used before. Yeah, it's going to be a wild ride."

With nearly two million monthly listeners on Spotify, BEARTOOTH has released four albums thus far: "Disgusting" (2014),"Aggressive" (2016),"Disease" (2018) and "Below" (2021).

The Ohio act recently released a deluxe edition of "Below". "Below Deluxe" is expanded to include 32 tracks. For this edition, BEARTOOTH added two new bonus tracks, "Fighting Back" and "Permanently Sealed", as well as a refreshed version of current radio single "Skin (Alternate Universe Version)", which mixes acoustics and electrics. It also includes the full, 17-track live recordings from the "Live From The Journey Below" livestream, recorded at the historic Clyde Theatre in Fort Wayne, Indiana in July 2021. An exclusive 52-track "Special Video Edition" Apple eMix bundle includes all the official videos plus the videos from "Live From The Journey Below".

Photo credit: Jimmy Fontaine