MASTODON – MARROW DEEP (Album Review)
- JOSE CRESPO
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Release date: August 28th, 2026
Record label: Loma Vista Recordings
The Riff Doctor’s Score:
RRRR – 4/5
DIAGNOSIS:
Marrow Deep carries grief in its bones but refuses to be buried beneath it. Overlong and occasionally too crowded for its own good, it nevertheless finds Mastodon turning absence into some of their heaviest, most progressive and emotionally powerful music in years.
THE FULL REVIEW
Death has cast its shadow across MASTODON’s music before. From the deeply personal foundations beneath Crack the Skye to the collective grief permeating Hushed and Grim, the Atlanta metal titans have often turned loss into something enormous, intricate and strangely beautiful. Yet few periods in their history have carried as much emotional weight as the one leading into their ninth studio album, Marrow Deep.
In February 2025, drummer and vocalist Brann Dailor lost his mother, Michele Lawrence. One month later, MASTODON announced their separation from founding guitarist and vocalist Brent Hinds, bringing an often brilliant, occasionally volatile 25-year relationship to a difficult end. Hinds’ subsequent death in a motorcycle accident that August transformed unresolved tension into permanent absence. Marrow Deep is therefore more than the first MASTODON album without him. It is the sound of three musicians grieving a brother while trying to understand who they are without one of the personalities who helped define them.
Joining Dailor, bassist and vocalist Troy Sanders and guitarist Bill Kelliher are guitarist Nick Johnston and keyboardist João Nogueira. Neither attempts to imitate Hinds. Instead, they help establish a subtly different version of MASTODON, one that remains crushingly heavy but embraces progressive rock, psychedelic textures and keyboards more extensively than before. Hinds’ unmistakable voice and wild unpredictability are inevitably missed, but Marrow Deep does not collapse beneath that absence. It moves forward carrying it.
Opener Barbarians Blood immediately demonstrates that the surviving core remains a frighteningly well-oiled machine. Dailor’s drums are pushed emphatically to the front as the song charges through several rhythmic transformations, while the contrast between the band’s two remaining vocalists becomes essential. Dailor handles the slower passages with his smoother, more melodic delivery, but the track is at its strongest when Sanders takes control. His deep, solemn voice gives the heavier sections an almost ceremonial power as the band advances like an intricately engineered steamroller.
That vocal balance becomes even more effective on Your Ghost Again, the album’s emotional centre and one of its finest moments. Written in the aftermath of Hinds’ death, it sounds like both a farewell and a confession: an expression of guilt and frustration from people who wanted their brother to be well but ultimately could not save him. Thrash-driven aggression gives way to a mournful chorus led by Dailor before the final section unexpectedly veers into progressive metal. Keyboards rise beneath an epic instrumental passage, only for an immensely heavy riff to drag everything back to earth. It is unpredictable without becoming disjointed, and devastating without resorting to empty sentimentality.
Snakes for Dinner is MASTODON in a more immediately recognisable form, carrying the muscular, accessible character of Once More ’Round the Sun. Sanders and Dailor combine during the chorus while the instrumentation demonstrates the effortless chemistry of a band playing at full power. Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, making his first appearance on a MASTODON album since Blood Mountain, emerges most noticeably towards the end. His almost shamanic delivery of “Where am I in the lens of your eyes?” adds an eerie texture without interrupting the song’s momentum. Familiar it may be, but when MASTODON sound this good, familiarity is hardly a crime.
The album’s progressive ambitions become more apparent on In the Ruins. Its opening rhythm carries the lightest touch of jazz, although the composition itself belongs much more clearly to progressive metal. Instrumentally, it is beautifully constructed, moving between restraint and force without losing its internal logic. Sanders is less convincing during its quietest moments, where his imposing voice occasionally feels too heavy for the space surrounding it. However, as the music gathers strength, there is nobody better equipped to drive it forward. His delivery of “I was there in the ruins” turns a comparatively simple chorus into something monumental, while the final 70-second instrumental passage builds a minor triumph from an uncomplicated but remarkably effective riff.
They’re Coming For You is similarly ambitious, but also exposes one of the album’s recurring weaknesses. Individual sections are genuinely fascinating, yet the sheer number of transitions gives its best ideas little room to breathe. MASTODON have always thrived on complexity, but complexity is most effective when every passage feels indispensable. Here, the band occasionally moves on just as something begins to take hold.
By contrast, Moth and Bone fully commits to the album’s most overtly progressive direction. Nogueira’s keyboards establish a dreamy 1970s aura that colours the entire track rather than appearing as a passing embellishment. Even so, it never stops sounding like MASTODON. Sudden rhythmic shifts leave ample space for Dailor’s thunderous fills, thrash-inflected attacks and the kind of riffs capable of flattening whatever celestial landscape the keyboards have just created. It is markedly different from the band’s usual approach, yet still unmistakably theirs—a difficult balance achieved with impressive confidence.
The temperature rises considerably on A Vampire’s Demeanor, the album’s most openly furious attack. Guest vocals from Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe and Converge’s Nate Newton bring additional rage to its choruses, complementing the track’s relentless drive. Their presence certainly intensifies the moment, although the song is already heavy enough that MASTODON could probably have generated the same violence unaided.
Then comes The Vanishing, beginning with a bass introduction from Black Sabbath legend Geezer Butler that demands a respectful removal of the proverbial hat. Its Sabbath DNA is unmistakable, but Butler’s appearance carries greater meaning than simple hero worship: the song was written about Dailor’s mother, and Geezer was her favourite member of BLACK SABBATH. After that magnificent opening, the track settles into a measured pace dominated by Dailor’s storytelling, with Gojira’s Joe Duplantier adding vocal support. Guitar solos lift it towards moments of genuine emotional grandeur before screams of anguish dissolve into an almost angelic conclusion of clean guitars. Rather than offering closure, it captures grief in all its contradictory forms: reverence, anger, devastation and the hope of something beyond the final goodbye.
Almost eight-minute closer The Three Fates provides a fitting summary of modern MASTODON. Clutch frontman Neil Fallon contributes spoken word before the track expands into an extended instrumental finale, with nearly five minutes devoted to the band’s ability to move between absolute rhythmic force and richly coloured progressive passages. Few groups can make music this technically elaborate feel so physical, or shift between brute weight and cosmic exploration with such personality.
At 12 tracks and 65 minutes, however, Marrow Deep sometimes carries more ideas than it needs. Its problem is not a shortage of quality but an unwillingness to discard anything. Reduced to ten songs, it could have been a tighter, more commanding experience worthy of an even higher score. Instead, some compositions become crowded by their own ambition, while the album’s strongest moments occasionally have to fight for space within its considerable length.
Nevertheless, this is far from a band merely surviving. MASTODON have absorbed unimaginable loss and emerged with their fundamental identity intact, while Nogueira and Johnston provide enough new colour to suggest a future beyond the tragedy. Marrow Deep cannot replace Brent Hinds, and wisely makes no attempt to do so. It honours what has disappeared by continuing to evolve—still bruised, still complicated and still capable of producing metal that very few bands could even contemplate.
Jose Crespo
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