Beartooth announced their upcoming fourth studio album Below a few weeks ago, and Caleb Shomo is warning fans that the new set of songs is "incredibly dark," as much of it was inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I think people should be prepared and know what they're going into," he told Loudwire Nights. "So really, the whole point of this record lyrically is me kind of just capturing... and also being as honest as I can possibly be about how I was feeling due to lockdown and COVID and everything going on."

"It does get to points where it's incredibly, incredibly dark and very self-deprecating and just borders on evil at points. But it's really not meant to be this like, super painful thing," he admitted, adding that he believes it's going to be easily misinterpreted.

The rocker looks at Below as his way of describing how not only he felt, but most other people likely did as well, and touching upon subjects that aren't exactly comfortable to talk about.

"I know how fucking gnarly [the pandemic] was... it was evil. And there were so many difficult times mentally because of lockdown. So I just tried to capture that, and it's almost this little time capsule of what it felt like," he said.

As for the sound of the record, he revealed that it's much more inspired by heavy metal, and sounds less like rock 'n' roll than they have in the past. He cited doom metal and Black Sabbath directly.

To hear more about Below, which will be out June 25 on Red Bull Records, watch the full interview... below. Pre-order the album here.

Beartooth's Caleb Shomo Interview With Loudwire Nights

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