BEARTOOTH + The Plot In You at The Van Buren

The fearlessly determined and creative Ohio-based powerhouse perfected a sound sought by a generation of bands, equal parts solitary musical confession and celebratory exorcism. BEARTOOTH music is an outright refusal to suffer in silence, weaponizing radio-ready bombast to deliver raw emotion mixed with noise-rock chaos. They combine hard rock and hardcore in a way that’s smart, lean, melodic, and irresistible, without apology. After over 900 million streams from songs like “The Past is Dead,” “Fed Up,” and “In Between”, in addition to the band’s fourth album, Below, topping charts and finding its way into Best Rock/Metal Albums of the Year in 2021, Rolling Stone introduced BEARTOOTH as one of 10 New Artists You Need To Know. The 2013 Sick EP was an emotionally stranded Shomo’s “message in a bottle,” tossed into a figurative ocean. Disgusting (2014), Aggressive (2016), Disease (2018), and Below (2021) expanded those themes of desperation, each sonically getting a step closer to the magical balance between the blood, sweat, and tears of classic recordings and the smooth gloss of modern production. Their latest single “Riptide” is the culmination of that battle: a furiously courageous song of self-empowerment serving as a victory lap to memorialize a struggle with mental health and self-acceptance, which has defined so much of BEARTOOTH since its inception. BEARTOOTH offers no cure, but the recovery comes in the process; the journey is the destination. So enjoy the ride.

Through balancing even the most extreme dynamics, The Plot In You consistently overturn and upend expectations. On any given track, it might seem like they’re about to go one way, but the band will turn on a dime and shift course before the crowd can even catch a breath. This uncanny element of surprise has entrenched the gold-selling Ohio quartet—Landon Tewers [vocals], Josh Childress [guitar], Ethan Yoder [bass], and Michael Cooper [drums]—on the cutting edge of heavy music. Whether it be threads of alternative, electronic, pop, or R&B, nothing is off limits, and everything is fair game for their creative process. That process has continued to morph. Following a series of fan favorite releases, the band made major waves with DISPOSE [2018]. “FEEL NOTHING” surged on social media as a viral phenomenon, generating hundreds of millions of streams and picking up a gold certification from the RIAA. The musicians only maintained this momentum with Swan Song in 2021. Hysteria rated it “9-out-of-10.” Simultaneously, they sold out shows coast-to-coast. During 2023, the band kickstarted another era with Vol. 1. “Divide” generated 9 million Spotify streams right out of the gate followed by “Left Behind,” exploding to the tune of 15.9 million Spotify streams. Upon the arrival of “Forgotten,” Revolver praised it among the “6 Best New Songs Right Now.”

Amid a generation gripped by loneliness, fear, and a desperate concern for the state of the world, Invent Animate are grabbing fans by the hand and choosing to walk with them.

There’s a sense of duty among the band – comprising vocalist Marcus Vik, bassist Caleb Sherradan, drummer Trey Celaya and guitarist Keaton Goldwire – to bare their own pain and tragedy for their listeners, indeed creating a safe, familiar place for listeners to process their own. It’s this deeply empathic and concerned approach to their output that sets Invent Animate apart, and has seen the band develop a close knit, cult-like following over their 10 years together. Stationed across Texas, Colorado and now Sweden (following Vik’s recruitment in 2019), the four-piece mark the latest addition to the UNFD roster. Home to a plethora of the band’s touring partners including Silent Planet and ERRA, alongside Spotify “sounds like” mates such as Like Moths To Flames, Void Of Vision, and Thornhill, Invent Animate perfectly complement their new label address with their ambient metalcore, djent and prog blends.

In January 2023, Sleep Theory’s first song (“Another Way”) hit 500k views on TikTok within 36 hours of its release. But what seemed like an overnight success was years in the making. Since retiring from the US Army several years ago, vocalist Cullen Moore’s dedicated his entire life to carving his own path in the music industry. Officially starting Sleep Theory in 2019, the current incarnation of his musical journey began as a studio project to fuse his love of hard rock, funk and R&B.

Now a four-piece band, Sleep Theory’s first two tracks both reached #1 on SiriusXM’s Octane, played their first run of shows to massive crowds, and signed to Epitaph Records for the release of their debut EP. Combining metalcore-like breakdowns with bluesy grooves and a pop sensibility made for modern radio, they’ve also racked up 13M global streams in 6 months and saw “Numb” crack the Top 40 on the Active Rock chart.