BLOG 6/26/25 "Band Autopsy: What Happened?"

Earlier in the year Brent Hinds, lead guitarist and founding member of Mastodon left the band after creative disputes. After 25 years of being Mastodon’s lead guitarist Brent Hinds finds himself out of love with the band due to “making music more for fame than for the love of music”, which is a sentiment I can understand. Since Emperor of Sand in 2017 Mastodon has become more of a band that exists to sell tickets for shows. According to Setlist.fm Mastodon's tours since Crack the Skye, have roughly tripled in quantity as well as timespan. In addition to this, as an anecdote Mastodon just has way more merch drops than any of the bands I consistently follow. Most bands will have a merch drop for a new album release and/ or a big tour, but Mastodon will have multiple in a year, for no real reason to sell a cool design on multiple pieces of clothing or for holidays for some reason? This has been the longest drought of Mastodon music in the history of the band, tied with Emperor of Sand and Hushed and Grim at 4 years. I don’t blame the bandmates themselves, it has been 27 years since they’ve been making music together after all, before the whole Mastodon band, times changes everyone, and Brent still has that young blood in him to make music hence why he’s in like 8 other bands? Maybe Brent Hinds can make Blood Vessels a thing again, that’ll make me happy at least. But this Band Autopsy, so do I genuinely think Mastodon is dead? No, they’re dead now, no news on new music, still touring, no one really knows what's happening with them, which is fine, their lead guitarist left them. However I am scared for their future. Their latest (2021) album, Hushed and Grim dropped the concept album angle they’re known for, just to have a through-line theme, much like a previous album, Once More ‘Round the Sun, which I have a theory that this album was rushed but that's besides the point. Point being both of these albums aren’t their best work. They are good, they both won Metal Storm awards, but fan reception wise agrees they aren’t as good as they could be, Hushed and Grim moreso. If this trend continues where we get longer droughts between albums that could be better, it could be a very bleak future for this band I love very much.