Mastodon
Pull a thread
Mastodon's *Marrow Deep*: one voice out, two members in
Brent Hinds was gone before a single note of this record was tracked. What Mastodon did next was fill the space with two new members instead of a replacement.
The aggregator headline writes itself: first Mastodon album without Brent Hinds. It is true, and it is the least interesting sentence you can write about Marrow Deep.
Here is the more useful way in. Mastodon went into the studio down a guitarist and came out a five-piece. Nick Johnston took the guitar chair, and keyboard player João Nogueira became an official member. Nine albums in, this is the first one made by five people. Something got added here.
Brent Hinds' Final Recorded Solos: Why They're on a Marcus King Record, Not Mastodon's *Marrow Deep*
Mastodon’s grief album has none of the man it grieves. One of the last solos Brent Hinds ever cut sat uncredited on a blues record for six months. The two stories belong together.
Two records, one absence
Mastodon put out Marrow Deep on 28 August 2026. Twelve tracks, 65 minutes, released through Loma Vista, and the first Mastodon album since Remission without Brent Hinds on it. Hinds left the band in March 2025, in a split first described as mutual and later disputed by Hinds himself, who said he had been kicked out for “embarrassing them” (Wikipedia). He died on 20 August 2025 in a motorcycle crash in Atlanta. He was 51.