For the first time in a quarter-century, Mastodon are heading into genuinely unfamiliar terrain. Marrow Deep, the Atlanta band’s ninth studio album, is their first without founding guitarist Brent Hinds, and it arrives roughly a year after his death. Drummer and vocalist Brann Dailor is meeting that reality with a mix of real excitement and honest uncertainty.
Speaking with Brooksy and JD of Australia’s “Rebel FM“, Dailor discussed the record, due August 28 via Loma Vista Recordings. It’s a release layered with firsts: the album marks Mastodon‘s first full-length to feature guitarist Nick Johnston, who filled in for Hinds on the road, along with major contributions from keyboardist João Nogueira. The band co-produced Marrow Deep at its own West End Sound studio in Atlanta with Patrik Berger (Lana Del Rey, Charli XCX) and Kurt Ballou (High On Fire, Converge), and handed the mix to Andrew Scheps (Adele, Black Sabbath, Metallica).
Regarding how he felt about finally getting the record out, Dailor reached for a tender, almost paternal image:
“Yeah, I’m excited [to finally see Marrow Deep released]. We’ve been sitting on it for a little while, so it’ll be nice to get it out there and get it to its first day of school and see if anybody picks on him. Maybe he can sit with the cool kids right off the bat, but we’ll see.”
When the conversation turned to whether putting the album out feels cathartic or more anxiety-ridden, given that it lands a year on from Hinds‘ passing, Dailor didn’t shy away from the complexity of it:
“I’d say it’s a bit of both. Just as there’s feelings on the other side with the fans that they haven’t felt before, there’s feelings that we haven’t felt before. We haven’t released an album without [all] four main [members of Mastodon]. And so there’s a little bit of the unknown, which is okay. I don’t know how they’re gonna react to it. I just know that the only thing that I have ever had any control over is the way I feel about it personally. And then the people in the room who made the record — myself, Bill [Kelliher], Troy [Sanders], and then João and Nick sort of came in at the end to help out as well — but when we got it to the finish line of, like, okay, listening from start to finish, all I can do is make sure that I’m in love with everything that is gonna be on the record, and that’s all I can really do. So I got it to that point — I got it to the point where I needed it to be, and so that has worked for me for 26 years, and so that’s where I’m at. But in the same breath, there’s some ground here that hasn’t been tread yet, so I guess we’ll see what happens. I’m excited, though, because I believe in the record, and I think that it’s the right record for us at this point in time.”
The weight behind those words is impossible to separate from the band’s recent history. Hinds, who co-founded Mastodon in 2000 and served as a lead guitarist and vocalist for the group, parted ways with his bandmates in March 2025. Five months later, in August 2025, he died in a motorcycle accident in Atlanta at the age of 51. The surviving founders, Dailor, Kelliher and Sanders, have carried on while openly acknowledging their loss, and the record includes “Your Ghost Again“, a song written as a tribute to their late bandmate.
Marrow Deep, the band’s first album since 2021’s Hushed And Grim, draws thematic inspiration from the Three Fates of Greek mythology and the fragile threads binding life, loss and destiny, which the band has described as some of its most emotionally charged and adventurous work yet. It’s led by the single “Snakes For Dinner“, which features a guest turn from longtime friend Josh Homme, his first appearance on a Mastodon track since “Colony Of Birchmen” on 2006’s Blood Mountain. The band will take the album on the road this fall on “The Poisonous Weapons Tour,” with Deafheaven and Alcest providing support.
