Album review by Bec Harbour
Marrow Deep is the 9th studio album from (insert label here prog/doom/stoner/sludge take your pick) metal titans Mastodon and the first since the departure and untimely passing of guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds. The band confirmed that Hinds did not play on the new album and they brought in Nick Johnson, a Canadian guitarist to cover lead duties.
Marrow Deep was announced as completed in May of 2026 and the first single ‘Your Ghost Again’ released on 6 June, described by the band as a tribute to Hinds. On 8 July they released a documentary The Mastodon In The Room where they reflected on their relationship with Hinds with the second single ‘Snakes For Dinner’ featuring Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme coming out later that month.
Kicking off the record is ‘Barbarian’s Blood’ “…we’re in danger…losing everything…” this intro makes you think that they are perhaps ruminating on the state of their home country. This song sneaks up on you and catches you with its bombastic chorus and time signature change, not allowing you to sit comfortably with the music and keeping you on high alert. The percussion contribution on ‘Barbarian’s Blood’ by Converge’s Ben Koller rounds out the heavy rhythm that drives this song along.
‘Poisonous Weapons’ also has those time signature changes but they are allowed to flow here and don’t sound so abrupt and allows the next song to breathe.
‘Your Ghost Again’ is Mastodon at their heaviest in some time, a bruising slab of sludge and progressive metal that carries an enormous emotional weight. Written in the aftermath of losing founding guitarist Brent Hinds, the song is as much about grief and memory as it is about riffs, with Brann Dailor delivering one of the band’s most visceral vocal performances. The verses simmer before exploding into a huge, mournful chorus, while the closing riff comes crashing down with the kind of heaviness that made Mastodon’s early records so formidable. New guitarist Nick Johnston doesn’t attempt to replicate Hinds’ unmistakable style either, instead bringing his own progressive edge to the band.
Fourth song on the album, ‘Snakes For Dinner’ shows where the stoner metal label came from with Josh Homme’s contribution making this feel very Kyuss flavoured. Homme last appeared on ‘Colony of Birchmen’ on 2006’s Blood Mountain, and adding his vocals to this one adds that element of danger and looseness, often not present on Mastodon recordings.
‘Out Like A Lamb’ has a rollicking movement, using an offbeat syncopation that keeps you on edge, but the vocals on this track are some of the best I have heard on a metal album in a while, being exactly where they need to be and when.
‘In the Ruins’ is another bridging track, with a rasping vocal from Troy Sanders that is very much on the prog-rock side of things – this song emerged from Sanders own personal devastation after losing everything in Hurricane Helene and you can hear the devastation in that vocal. Coupled with other losses within the band (Hinds and Dailor’s mother) during this period.
This goes running into ‘They’re Coming For You’ with a similarly styled proggy beginning, but by the end they are back to the metal blast.
The next four songs all run together for me, ‘They’re Coming For You’, ‘Golden Spires’, ‘Moth & Bone’ and ‘A Vampires Demeanour’ (the last with guest vocals from Randy Blythe of Lamb of God and Converge’s Nate Newton) and I don’t mean this as a bad thing. This last quarter of the album sweeps you away into the sonic landscape that Mastodon have created and almost strands you there – with way more listens, I feel the songs will develop distinct identities for me, but for the couple of listens for this review I was so engrossed while listening, I would forget that I needed to create these distinct song identities. In saying that, do they need them?
Second last on Marrow Deep, ‘The Vanishing’ begins in a lot more menacing fashion than it continues on with, with this dipping right into 70’s prog-rock territory. The vocals are put through a treatment and there are some great sounding synths and acoustic guitars in there before you get levelled with what constitutes a chorus and then back to the introspective acoustic guitar fading you out. The guests on this album are next level; Geezer Butler playing the intro on this song and vocals from Joe Duplantier from Gojira weaving throughout the track.
The final song on the album ‘The Three Fates’ comes in like a sledgehammer after the introspection of ‘The Vanishing’. The spoken word part of the bridge was an interesting touch that I didn’t think the song needed (contributed by Neil Fallon from Clutch no less), but very in keeping with the prog elements on this song with some 70’s chiming keys to go with an understated guitar lead.
Losing someone with as big an identity that Brent Hinds had in Mastodon could have signalled another bands death knell. Mastodon have created something in Marrow Deep that not only progresses their sound, with the addition of touring keyboardist João Nogueira to the album, pulling from those 70’s prog-rock sounds and letting heavy co-exist with the softer atmospheric elements on the album.
This is an album that you need to take your time with, sit with and let it wash over you without distraction.
Marrow Deep is out Friday 28 August 2026.
8.5/10
