The song was \u201cYour Ghost Again,\u201d from the band\u2019s new album, \u201cMarrow Deep,\u201d and it closed with a supercharged riff as heavy as Slayer or Sabbath. It was an epic remembrance, with feelings complicated by the fact that Mastodon was estranged from Hinds at the time of his death at 51 from a motorcycle crash in 2025. While the band\u2019s lyrics and muscular swirl of sounds did most of the talking at the concert, singer-bassist Troy Sanders greeted the crowd early in the set with an acknowledgment of the troubles they\u2019ve seen, which also included the death of Dailor\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for your patience and understanding,\u201d Sanders said, \u201cand giving us the time that we needed to navigate some dysfunction and some troubled waters to write the album we\u2019re proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Times ahead of the album\u2019s August release, Mastodon\u2019s three surviving founding members \u2014 Dailor, Sanders and rhythm guitarist Bill Kelliher \u2014 reflected on the new songs, and their efforts to push past tragedy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was obvious that the record was going to be about that,\u201d said Dailor, sitting with the others in an upstairs loft at the Hollywood offices of the band\u2019s label, Loma Vista. \u201cUnfortunately, that\u2019s been our MO for the last 15 to 20 years. We thought we were going to escape it and this new album and was going back to telling some fantastical story, with witches and Pegasus and whoever we could throw in the mix. But that wasn\u2019t what fate had in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Making Hinds\u2019 loss more intense and emotionally complicated was that the band had just fired him from Mastodon five months earlier. Hinds was a big, sometimes difficult personality, with an easy laugh and a large tribal tattoo across his face, plus a general unwillingness to compromise. He was bitter about the breakup and expressed those feelings online.<\/p>\n
Built from heavy music of complexity and deep emotion, \u201cMarrow Deep\u201d is in part a document of the band in conflict and mourning for the man they\u2019d spent two decades within a close creative brotherhood.<\/p>\n
![\"Mastodon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791851650_184_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Mastodon singer-bassist Troy Sanders (center) performs at the Hollywood Palladium. <\/p>\n
(Steve Appleford)<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no skirting around it,\u201d says singer-bassist Sanders of the album\u2019s themes. \u201cWe\u2019re processing this together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The album\u2019s first single was \u201cYour Ghost Again,\u201d inspired by visions Dailor kept having in the studio, where he thought he saw Hinds in his usual spot on the far edge of the drummer\u2019s peripheral vision. \u201cI just kept seeing him. I kept hearing his necklaces. I kept hearing his voice out in the hallway,\u201d Dailor recalls.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told the guys when we were sitting there, \u2018Man, I keep seeing Brent. It\u2019s really freaky.\u2019 It gives you a little jolt, and then you\u2019re reminded that they\u2019re not coming back and it\u2019s sad, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
The relationship with Hinds was complicated, and much of the history behind the scenes was unknown even to devoted fans of the group. And as time went on, the others felt that Hinds prioritized Mastodon less and less. That sometimes led to tension and chaos even onstage. In 2025, after a performance at the Aftershock Festival in Sacramento, things came to a point where his bandmates needed some distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis heart wasn\u2019t in it, and he couldn\u2019t let go. He couldn\u2019t leave our lifestyle,\u201d said Kelliher. \u201cI called our management. I said, we need to make a decision and do this. It was hardest thing I had to do, but I felt like it was the right thing to do for all of us \u2014 for Brent too. Go do what you like to do because you obviously don\u2019t like to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
As that drama was unfolding, Dailor was already mourning the loss of his mother. The first lyrics written for the album by the drummer were for \u201cOut Like a Lamb,\u201d set to sounds tense and melancholy about the loss \u2014 which followed his mother\u2019s lifetime of rheumatoid arthritis and many other health challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Therapeutic\u2019 is a word that gets used a lot, but it\u2019s really true \u2014 and this record for me more than ever, because I have a hard time processing emotions,\u201d explained Sanders, bearded and graying in a Men at Work T-shirt. \u201cWhen Brann and I were starting to write lyrics, it wasn\u2019t fun. It\u2019s a bum out. But after it was all said and done \u2026 I realize how important that was and how helpful it was for me personally, and the whole band.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMarrow Deep,\u201d the band\u2019s ninth studio album, reached No. 2 on Billboard\u2019s Top Hard Rock Albums chart, and has been widely acclaimed critically. The Palladium performance was to a full house, with crowd surfers tumbling frequently into the photo pit.<\/p>\n
![\"Mastodon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791851651_456_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Mastodon rhythm guitarist Bill Kelliher performs at the Hollywood Palladium. <\/p>\n
(Steve Appleford)<\/p>\n
At the concert, Mastodon also appeared as a band pushing past the tragedies, and was re-energized and refocused with a new lineup.<\/p>\n
Stepping into the band\u2019s lead guitarist role was Nick Johnston, a forceful presence delivering crisp musical phrases that could be fittingly elegant or snarling. In place of Hinds, he certainly faced the most scrutiny in the band\u2019s first Los Angeles show since 2023, but he was cheerfully engaged and relaxed with the crowd.<\/p>\n
Mastodon\u2019s other newest member is keyboardist Jo\u00e3o Nogueira, a revelation on the album and at the Palladium, though he\u2019s been a sideman to the band for years. Now a full member, he\u2019s unleashed a new layer of invention, reflecting Mastodon\u2019s obsession with a certain kind of mid-\u201970s prog rock.<\/p>\n
The new album\u2019s \u201cPoisonous Weapons\u201d began on Saturday with a keyboard interlude that was like an echo of the Age of Aquarius, easing into ethereal passages before the rest of the band erupted with a storm of heavy guitars. Another wild keyboard run was part of \u201cSnakes For Dinner,\u201d as Sanders led the crowd to clap along to Dailor\u2019s thunderous drumbeat.<\/p>\n
They were soon joined by John Baizley, singer-guitarist from the metal band Baroness, who remained for the rest of the concert to fill in on Hinds\u2019 vocal parts on several songs, including \u201cThe Czar\u201d and the set-closing \u201cBlood and Thunder.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time the night was over, and Dailor was alone out front saying his goodbyes and tossing drumsticks into the crowd, Mastodon showed it was still surviving and thriving. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very promising right now because we have five friends super-aligned with one another,\u201d Sanders told The Times. \u201cEveryone has the same desires, the same dedication. What a beautiful opportunity to just press the gas pedal further.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than two decades, Mastodon has turned tragedy into deeply felt musical inspiration.It\u2019s been a recurring theme…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[24956,136416,7069,15456,369888,369891,88,22521,369889,3468,15389,216,994,14797,33096,369890,2384],"class_list":["post-880268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-band","tag-brent-hinds","tag-concert","tag-crowd","tag-dailor","tag-emotional-hollywood-palladium-show","tag-entertainment","tag-ghost","tag-hinds","tag-mastodon","tag-mother","tag-music","tag-new-album","tag-part","tag-sanders","tag-terrible-loss","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}