MASTODON have released the video for "In The Ruins", the third piece of "Marrow Deep" to reach daylight ahead of the album's August 28 arrival via Loma Vista Recordings.
The song has an unusually literal origin. Hurricane Helene flooded bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders's home and destroyed the family's belongings, forcing them into nearly two years of displacement — a stretch that overlapped with the deaths of founding guitarist Brent Hinds and of drummer Brann Dailor's mother, Michele Lawrence.
"'In The Ruins' is inspired by the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene and the havoc it wreaked upon Troy and his family," the band said. "Yup, it's another deep one, but ultimately it's us channeling the loss into a powerful declaration of resilience and catharsis. We are lucky we have each other, and we are lucky we have you, our fans!"
The visual comes from animation and VFX studio Hey Beautiful Jerk, longtime friends of the band, and follows a one-eyed creature named Frank across flooded and ruined landscapes. Its origin is almost as bleak as the song's. "The initial inspiration for Frank and the concept for 'In The Ruins' came to me when I was in the ER for 10 hours with the worst eye infection of my life," the studio explained. "The pain was so bad it felt like my eye was revolting and wanted to escape my head. I had just talked to Brann about the meaning of the song and how it was inspired by his and Troy's recent losses. The expression 'picking up the pieces' came to me and I sketched a very rough version of Frank on my phone."
"Marrow Deep" is MASTODON's first full-length without Hinds, who was fired in March 2025 and died in a motorcycle accident five months later. It is also their first as a five-piece, with new guitarist Nick Johnston and keyboardist João Nogueira both contributing heavily. The band co-produced it at their own West End Sound in Atlanta with Patrik Berger and Kurt Ballou, with Andrew Scheps mixing.
Five years on from "Hushed And Grim", the record takes the Three Fates of Greek mythology as its frame — the threads binding life, loss and destiny — and Sanders says the mood inside the band is closer to the beginning than the middle.
"Bill, Brann and myself are thrilled that we still have the opportunity to do this, and we've got other members who are just over the moon to be in the band with us," he said. "That's a magical feeling that makes us keep wanting to go to band practice."
Source: blabbermouth.net