Mastodon Bring Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler into ‘Marrow Deep’

Mastodon have brought one of heavy metal’s foundational figures into their next chapter. Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler appears on “The Vanishing”, a track from the Atlanta band’s forthcoming album Marrow Deep.

Troy Sanders has now given more detail about the collaboration, revealing that he personally approached Butler about playing on the song. For a band that has never hidden the importance of Black Sabbath to its musical foundations, the resulting guest appearance carries considerably more weight than the usual name added to an album’s credits.

Geezer Butler steps into ‘The Vanishing’

Butler’s contribution is specific. He plays bass on “The Vanishing”, temporarily taking over the instrument normally handled by Sanders.

According to Sanders, the collaboration came together simply because he decided to ask.

That question ultimately put one of metal’s most influential bassists inside a Mastodon recording, connecting two generations of heavy music that have long shared musical DNA.

Black Sabbath’s influence runs throughout the heavier music that followed them, but Mastodon have always carried that lineage particularly visibly. The band’s combination of massive riffs, progressive structures, psychedelia and darker melodic passages owes something to the vocabulary Sabbath helped establish decades earlier.

Having Butler actually play on a Mastodon song therefore feels less like an unexpected crossover and more like closing a circle.

For Sanders, it also meant stepping aside from his usual role.

Rather than sharing the bass parts, he handed “The Vanishing” over to Butler. Sanders has described hearing the finished contribution as a special moment, particularly given what Butler and Sabbath meant to him growing up.

More than a guest spot

High-profile guest appearances can easily become a promotional detail rather than something that materially changes a record. This one has a different context.

Butler’s bass playing was fundamental to Black Sabbath’s sound, operating underneath Tony Iommi’s riffs without simply following them. His approach helped establish a language that generations of doom, sludge, stoner and progressive metal bands would later develop in different directions.

Mastodon belong firmly within that lineage. Across records from Remission and Leviathan through Crack the Skye and Hushed and Grim, the band have repeatedly combined progressive ambition with riffs rooted in the heavier traditions Sabbath helped create.

“The Vanishing” now makes that relationship literal.

It also arrives at an important point in Mastodon’s history. Marrow Deep is the band’s first studio album following the departure of longtime guitarist and vocalist Brent Hinds in 2025, and therefore the first full record from a changed version of the group.

The Butler collaboration doesn’t define that transition, but it adds another point of interest to an album already carrying more significance than a routine follow-up.

MARROW DEEP [FRAMED]

Marrow Deep follows 2021’s Hushed and Grim and will arrive on 23 October 2026.

The album finds Mastodon moving forward with Troy Sanders, Bill Kelliher and Brann Dailor at its core while beginning a new period in the band’s history.

Bringing Geezer Butler into that process is a small moment in terms of one song on one album. In terms of lineage, it is considerably bigger.

Mastodon have spent more than two decades helping shape what modern heavy music can sound like. Black Sabbath helped create the foundations underneath it.

On “The Vanishing”, those histories finally occupy the same recording.