The last time Mastodon played this field, at Sonic Temple on May 9, 2025, Nick Johnston had been in the band for about a day. His first show was May 8 in Chesterfield, Missouri; Brent Hinds, the founding guitarist and vocalist, had left that March. So Columbus got one of the very first looks at a lineup nobody had planned for. They'd also been here for Rock on the Range back in 2014.
Hinds died in a motorcycle accident in August 2025. Brann Dailor lost his mother, Michele Lawrence, in the same stretch. A band that had won a Grammy for Best Metal Performance with "Sultan's Curse" could easily have stopped there.
It made Marrow Deep instead, its ninth album, out August 28, 2026 on Loma Vista. Patrik Berger and Kurt Ballou co-produced it at the band's own West End Sound studio in Atlanta, and the record is built around the Three Fates of Greek myth. Johnston and keyboardist João Nogueira are full members now, which makes Mastodon a five-piece for the first time. Dailor has said the first single, "Your Ghost Again," came out of grief. "Snakes for Dinner" brings back Josh Homme, whose last appearance with them was "Colony of Birchmen" on 2006's Blood Mountain. The fall run behind it was called the Poisonous Weapons Tour, with Deafheaven and Alcest opening.