MASTODON Returns With New Single, 'Your Ghost Again', A Tribute To Band's Late Guitarist BRENT HINDS

Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON have released a new song, "Your Ghost Again". The track, which was produced by Patrik Berger (Taylor Swift, Robyn) and CONVERGE guitarist Kurt Ballou, is the first single from the band's upcoming ninth studio album, due later in the year.

"Your Ghost Again" is the first piece of new MASTODON music to be released since the death of co-founding guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds, who departed MASTODON in March 2025. Hinds passed away in a motorcycle accident five months later. He was replaced by touring guitarist Nick Johnston, who reportedly will appear on the new studio LP.

In a video accompanying the announcement of the new single, the MASTODON members said the song was a tribute to their former bandmate.

"'Your Ghost Again' is about when you lose somebody that's close to you that you existed with for most of your life," MASTODON drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor said. "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 went on to say that "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 MASTODON bassist/vocalist Troy 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."

MASTODON guitarist/vocalist Bill 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 shit's personal."

Regarding the upcoming MASTODON LP, which will also feature keyboardist João Nogueira, Brann 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."

Brann continued: "It means a lot to me, and I hope that's able to translate to our fans and people who are grieving, too. 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."

Last month, Dailor confirmed to BLABBERMOUTH.NET that MASTODON's highly anticipated ninth studio album is "finished." "We're very excited about it," Dailor said. "It was a hard record to make. It was a very emotional time for us. I lost my mom, we went through all this turmoil with Brent, and then he passed away. It's been tough. It's all in the music, it's all in the songs, and I'm excited to release it and get it out there into the world because we've been sitting on it for a while. A lot of this stuff, at least the skeletons of what this album is, we've been sitting on for two years now. A lot was going on."

Asked whether the new studio album features any musical contributions from Hinds, Dailor told BLABBERMOUTH.NET: "No. It's all new stuff. Toward the end, unfortunately, it was hard to get him to come down to the [practice] space. He was interested in doing other stuff, which was fine. It was a confusing time. [Laughs] I was the one going, 'Come on, man. Come down. Let's riff.' He was a free spirit. He wanted to ride his motorcycle around and go do this and that. He was wherever the wind took him. Unfortunately, it was not down to the practice space to work on riffs. It was a little bit frustrating. I was okay with it. I was like, 'Hey man, everyone can do whatever they want to do in their life. If you're unhappy and not wanting to be here doing whatever, figure out what does make you happy and do that.'"

Brent was reportedly riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle late on August 20, 2025 when he was hit by an SUV turning left and failing to yield at the intersection of Memorial Drive SE and Boulevard SE, less than two miles from downtown Atlanta, according to Atlanta police.

Hinds was found unresponsive by officers who responded to the crash around 11:35 p.m. and was pronounced dead by medical workers.

According to a crash report, investigators found that Hinds was at fault for the accident because he was speeding. Relying on video of the intersection, investigators calculated that the musician was going between 63 and 68 mph, which is roughly twice the speed limit at the crash site, the report said.

In March 2025, MASTODON revealed that the band and Hinds had "mutually decided to part ways" after "25 monumental years together."

Since 2000, Hinds had served as lead guitarist and vocalist for MASTODON, alongside bassist/singer Troy Sanders, drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor, and guitarist Bill Kelliher.

MASTODON's lineup had remained the same for 25 years, recording eight studio albums, beginning with 2002's "Remission" until the band's latest LP, 2021's "Hushed And Grim".

Hinds later claimed he had been ejected from MASTODON and called his former bandmates "horrible humans" in a social media post.

Hinds was involved with several music projects apart from MASTODON, including the group GIRAFFE TONGUE ORCHESTRA — alongside members of THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN and ALICE IN CHAINS — as well as LEGEND OF THE SEAGULLMEN and the long-running project FIEND WITHOUT A FACE.

More recently, Hinds had a tour, "An Evening With Brent Hinds", set for November and December 2025 throughout Europe.

"I'm a free spirit," Hinds said in the MASTODON documentary "The Workhorse Chronicles". "I enjoy life and I live it to the fullest."

Brent played his first show since exiting MASTODON on March 21, 2025 with his band FIEND WITHOUT A FACE at 529 in Atlanta, Georgia.

MASTODON has had nine Billboard 200-charting albums and has been nominated for a Grammy Award six times. The band won a "Best Metal Performance" Grammy for "Sultan's Curse" in 2018.

MASTODON's latest album, "Hushed And Grim", was a double LP recorded at the band's Atlanta studio, West End Sound.

MASTODON recruited Ben Eller, a guitarist known for his popular YouTube channel, to step in for Hinds when the band played at TOOL's "Tool In The Sand" festival in the Dominican Republic in March 2025. For MASTODON's spring 2025 tour and other recent shows, the band enlisted the aforementioned Canadian musician Nick Johnston. Johnston has six solo records under his belt, and has also worked with POLYPHIA, Guthrie Govan, PERIPHERY and many others.