Review Summary: “Aggressive” showcases Beartooth’s progression without doing away with the core elements that built them an ardent fan base willing to thrash about inside pits worldwide. From Warped Tour to Rock on the Range, this album will fucking rip anywhere.
Beartooth catalyst Caleb Shomo’s battles with anxiety and depression are well documented since his band’s inception in 2012. This broiling rage has manifested itself on their debut EP “Sick” in 2012, and first full-length “Disgusting” in 2014. Shomo is once again teeming with vitriol on Beartooth’s latest slugfest, the aptly titled “Aggressive.” Additionally, this cathartic session finds Shomo exploring a healthier outlook on life with even more conviction and resolve than on any of his previous efforts.
The album begins with the same explosive hardcore punk elements that made their debut LP memorable on the title track. “Rejoice in your sickness/Mental diseases/Twisted philanthropist,” the hardcore maestro bites over buzz saw guitars and assaultive drums before joining forces with some gang vocals during another fist-raising chorus.
Some material on “Aggressive” feels like a retread of past efforts; “Always Dead” is the mutated half-brother of “Dead,” off “Disgusting.” Both feature blistering double-time drums and two-step breakdowns pressurized inside a two minute bottle rocket.
A spine-chilling chorus charged with Shomo’s impeccable vocal control lifts “Sick of Me” into “Beaten in Lips” altitude. The song, scream-free, claws its way into your ears and chest with a lethal combination of hoarse-throated emotion and quick and infectious melodic barbs. Bustling with a similar urgency and heart-pounding drums, “Hated” is fueled by the pain inflicted by those who have mistreated Shomo over the years. “I won’t forget/I won’t forgive/I won’t forget” states Shomo as he sets up a pointed chorus brimming with conviction. Clearly those people never anticipated to be on the opposite end of the singer’s anger in verse and chorus.
The most important ingredient to Shomo’s controlled chaos is the emphasis on earworm melodies throughout “Aggressive,” separating the album from a powerful back catalogue, however limited it may be. “However You Want it Said” is another biting right hook directed at naysayers, boasting an impossibly catchy chorus over rumbling guitar riffs and breakdowns for a dynamic union between metalcore and pop.
Considering that Shomo assembles most, if not all, of Beartooth’s tunes himself before handing the studio controls over for further critique, it is impressive how refined his songwriting chops have become since his much maligned Attack Attack! years. The sludgy blues riff on the exiting track, “King of Anything,” suggests Shomo is receptive to writing more than just raging metalcore bangers and scorching double-time passages for subsequent releases. While still in the present, however, “Aggressive” finds a talented young songwriter forming the foundation for a promising career upholding the future of hard rock.
