CKY have released "Beware Of The Heartless," a new single built around a guitar solo recorded by the late Brent Hinds — founding guitarist and vocalist of MASTODON, and a longtime friend of the band. The track went live today, August 14, across all major streaming platforms.
The timing is deliberate. Hinds died on August 20, 2025, and the first anniversary of his death is days away. Rather than let an unheard performance sit indefinitely on a hard drive, CKY decided to hand it over to the people who would want it most.
"We were reminded that it was a year since our friend Brent passed away," guitarist/vocalist Chad I Ginsburg explains. "Brent played a solo on a song we recorded called 'Beware Of The Heartless,' and I thought, 'Why would I leave this on my computer?' Brent took the time to play on it and we loved him, and in honor of his passing, we were too bummed out in the moment to think about that shit, but I want to throw it out there because I don't want to hold on to it forever. I want to let go of it and give it to everyone."
It is the second CKY song to carry Hinds's playing. He previously contributed a solo to "Days Of Self Destruction," from the band's 2017 album "The Phoenix."
The friendship ran well past studio favours. Hinds's band FIEND WITHOUT A FACE was booked to open for CKY on a U.K. tour last fall — a run both camps had been looking forward to for years, and one that never happened. Hinds's death ended those plans before the first show could be played.
What survives, then, is the playing itself: a solo cut for friends, filed away, and now released precisely because holding on to it served no one. There is no reissue campaign here, no deluxe box, no anniversary edition — just a piece of music that its author will never hear finished, handed to an audience that will.
For CKY, the gesture is characteristically unsentimental in its framing and quietly devastating in effect. "Beware Of The Heartless" is out now, and Brent Hinds is, for a few minutes at least, audible again.