Atlanta progressive metallers Mastodon will release their long-awaited ninth studio album, Marrow Deep, on Aug. 28 via Loma Vista Recordings. The album’s new single, “Snakes For Dinner,” features a guest vocal appearance by Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme. The collaboration marks Homme’s first appearance on a Mastodon recording since his contribution to “Colony Of Birchmen” on 2006’s Blood Mountain. Check out the music video below.
Five years on from the expansive Hushed And Grim, Marrow Deep documents founding members Brann Dailor, Troy Sanders and Bill Kelliher emerging from years of personal upheaval with a renewed sense of purpose. Inspired by the Three Fates of Greek mythology and the fragile threads connecting life, loss, and destiny, the album channels the intense personal experiences of the intervening years into some of the most expansive, adventurous, and emotionally resonant music of the band’s career.
It marks Mastodon’s first full-length to feature guitarist Nick Johnston alongside significant contributions from keyboardist João Nogueira. Marrow Deep was co-produced by Mastodon at the band’s own West End Sound in Atlanta with Patrik Berger (Lana Del Rey, Charli XCX) and Kurt Ballou (High on Fire, Converge), mixed by Andrew Scheps (Adele, Black Sabbath, Metallica), and includes a roster of additional guests to be announced.
Sanders said of the band’s energy heading into the record: “Bill, Brann and I are thrilled that we still have the opportunity to do this, and we’ve got other members who are just over the moon to be in the band with us. That’s a magical feeling that makes us keep wanting to go to band practice. It’s reminiscent of the very beginning of our band, where all members are hungry, we’re united, and excited to get to work. And we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to do this record.”
“Snakes For Dinner” follows last month’s single “Your Ghost Again,” which ranked No. 2 in a Revolver reader’s poll of best songs of 2026 so far, and arrives in the wake of last week’s short film “The Mastodon In The Room,” an intimate document of the trio processing the unresolved grief surrounding the loss of founding guitarist Brent Hinds.
On “Your Ghost Again,” Dailor said: “‘Your Ghost Again’ is about when you lose somebody that’s close to you that you existed with for most of your life. When we were in the studio recording, I kept seeing Brent. I’d see him on my right holding the guitar because that’s where he’d usually be. It’s the same with my mom: I keep seeing her. I was just singing about what I was seeing, and I was seeing ghosts.”
Dailor continued: “[‘Your Ghost Again’ is] about being in those familiar places you used to be with people, which for us is in the studio. I just kept seeing [Brent] out of the corner of my eye, where he would normally be with his guitar. It’s about that: your mind plays tricks on you, especially so soon after someone dies and you’re in the places where they always were. You just see them.”
“My portion of the song, lyrically, is all about Brent, and for Brent,” added Sanders. “The bridge lyrics are two lines of pure gratitude towards Brent. It’s all the gifts from you, now you can take them back where you must go, meaning you came into my life, you exposed me to things that blew my mind, together we conquered thousands of stages around the world, had magical moments that we can never repeat again, but all the beauty that you brought it still remains, always will, and it’s just a line of gratitude because that’s important that we include Brent.”
Kelliher commented: “We wanted to pick a song that sounds like Mastodon, and that has all the things in there, because it’s the first impression of what people are gonna hear. It speaks about things that have just happened and people passing; I could go deep, but I don’t want to because a lot of that s**t’s personal.”
Regarding Marrow Deep as a whole, Dailor said: “Hopefully this album helps everybody. Hopefully they can find some piece of it that speaks to them about it. I know Brent’s not there and it’s weird and it’s hard, and some people might be like, ‘Well I don’t wanna listen to it because Brent’s not there and I’m hurting about that’, but we are too. Big time.”
“It means a lot to me, and I hope that’s able to translate to our fans and people who are grieving, too,” Brann continued. “I understand that, because we never really addressed it. We just couldn’t. And to the fans I’m just sorry that I wasn’t able to be more for them when that happened, because I couldn’t. For myself, I’m still unpacking it.”
Mastodon will celebrate the release of Marrow Deep with “The Poisonous Weapons Tour,” a nationwide run of dates with support from Deafheaven and Alcest, kicking off Sept. 16 in Orlando and closing out Oct. 24 at Sick New World Dallas. The announcement follows Marrow Deep’s preceding single “Your Ghost Again,” co-produced by Berger and Ballou, as the first preview of the album. Hinds departed Mastodon in March 2025 and passed away in a motorcycle accident five months later. Johnston, who has six solo records and has worked with Polyphia, Guthrie Govan and Periphery, stepped in for the band’s spring 2025 tour and will appear on the new album. Mastodon has placed nine albums on the Billboard 200, earned six Grammy Award nominations, and won Best Metal Performance for “Sultan’s Curse” in 2018.
