A few weeks ago, Mastodon shared the short film A Mastodon In The Room. It’s a documentary / commemoration of their time with Brent Hinds, released just under a year after his passing, and featuring clips and home movies of the band’s earlier years touring. Additionally, it served as a reconciliation of their time with Hinds, and a surprisingly unfiltered, un-sugarcoated one, at that. It’s a very grown-up statement to make, especially in what’s basically a eulogising piece. There was love there, sure, but also conflicts and fallouts, and from watching the film, you get the impression that acknowledging those moments is where the real closure comes from.
In relation to their music, then, it’s almost a primer for what Marrow Deep seeks to explore. Death is not a strange topic on Mastodon albums—it’s been at least a theme on every one—especially of someone close. A good swathe of the band’s work has been inhabited by illness and loss of family and dearly loved ones, as recently as 2021’s Hushed And Grim in the wake of the band’s manager Nick John’s passing. On Marrow Deep, such a loss is arguably baked deeper into Mastodon than ever before, and you see the effect. It’s an album where what’s next plays just as big a role as grief, metaphorised as the Three Fates of Greek myth as a representation of life and destiny.
Your Ghost Again serves as the epicentre of Marrow Deep as a result. It was intended as a standalone tribute to Hinds, not to appear on an album, and yet, so much of the framework of this can be traced back to that. There’s undoubtedly grief, but also regret, and gratitude, and the tacit knowledge that the future has to be reconciled with. Spread over its hour-plus runtime, it becomes as monolithic as you’d expect from a Mastodon album. Troy Sanders and Brann Dailor’s vocals almost sound submerged, like they’re struggling for form under the weight of time. And yet, at the same time, they persist, as is inevitable of all things.
It leads to quite the unique feel for a Mastodon album, overall. Maybe some of that is to do with Marrow Deep having more explicitly prog moments like Moth And Bone and A Vampire’s Demeanor, which seem better equipped to field something more metaphysical as this. There’s also a less structured take on their usual adventurousness on display. Locked-in metal isn’t exactly difficult to come by (see Snakes For Dinner as the pinnacle of that, and maybe of the album itself), but forward thought is ultimately Mastodon’s guiding arrow. That explains the presence of João Nogueira, the new keyboardist whose experience in Les Claypool and Sean Lennon’s wig-out project finds a psychedelic edge begin to creep through on Poisonous Weapons and Out Like A Lamb. On another tack, The Vanishing has a haunted, depleted feel brought to it that complements a prog-metal slow burn so well. Oh, and there’s a big bass rumble from one Geezer Butler at the start; thought you might care to know.
Overall, it’s a great thing that vitality and creativity from Mastodon remains at a premium. They’re one of the most consistent, exciting metal bands in the world for that exact reason. And even if this one is a bit more measured and less immediate on the whole, it’s at no detriment to the core working overtime. Even in the opening seconds of Barbarians Blood with Dailor’s shuddering, stomping drumbeat, that’s set in stone. From then on, Mastodon’s strength is as apparent as ever, now with an added element of shapeshifting that, worst case scenario, is a lateral move. Oddly, They’re Coming For You is a bit stunted in its mix, made all the more conspicuous when everything else is firing on all cylinders as usual. Chalk it up to a minor blip; it’s hardly indicative of some fall-off elsewhere.
At the same time, the unassailable heights of their best can leave Marrow Deep a few rungs behind, but as a different kind of Mastodon album, it’s almost unfair to make comparisons like that. Instead, it’s an album almost designed to invite what’s to come, as Mastodon emerge from tragedy as the most candid and farsighted version of themselves yet. Above all, it’s an album that they needed to make, and its success is all the more rewarding for it. Just as life and time are inevitable, so are Mastodon.
For fans of: Baroness, Gojira, Opeth
‘Marrow Deep’ by Mastodon is released on 28th August on Loma Vista Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
