Early last month, the members of Mastodon teased the potential of a "heavy" and "brutal" new track that they hoped to release soon. However, in a new interview with RockSverige, drummer Brann Dailor reveals why the release has been delayed and also lays out a timeline for their next studio album.

The track in question featured Neurosis' Scott Kelly, and as many Mastodon fans know, it's been a tradition to have Kelly guest on each of their albums. Kelly was also scheduled to join the group on tour in Europe, but as Dailor reveals, they just weren't able to finish the song in time.

"We wanted to release it right ahead of this tour, and we were trying really hard, and we had one foot in the studio and one foot on the airplane coming to Europe, and it just didn't really come together as quickly as we wanted it to," says the drummer. "It's finished — the song is fully finished and it's mastered and ready to rock — but we'll just have to wait to release it. It would've made sense to release it ahead of this tour because we have Scott Kelly with us and he sings on some of it, so that would've been cool. We missed by a week or something and then we were stupid and went and blabbed about it like it was going to be a done deal. We thought it was going to be done sooner, but there were some circumstances that got in the way, unfortunately. But it's still a kickass song and it's pretty heavy."

In their recent Kerrang interview, Dailor said the song was "as heavy as I’ve heard us in a while," while guitarist Bill Kelliher called it "a basher" and "brutal." While speaking with Rock Sverige, the drummer offering more insight, revealing the song came about quickly while the group was testing out the sonics of their new studio. "We got everything hooked up; everything's up and running. We got my drums set up and we really wanted to hear what the room sounds like or what it's capable of, so we had a track that was… I mean, we wrote it in a couple of days," recalls the drummer. "I had a few riffs and went to Bill and said, 'I've got these riffs.' and he went, 'Well, I've got this riff that fits with that,' like we do, and then we started working on it. It yielded something really cool and we all liked it." Dailor says they used the song as a test to see if they felt they could make a proper album in their new studio and were thrilled with the results.

As for their work on the next album, the drummer revealed that while they have been working on material, it likely won't arrive this year. "I think next year would be smarter [than this year], on our part. We need to let people miss us, maybe," explained Dailor.

The Grammy-winning Mastodon are currently wrapping up a tour in Europe, and only have a couple of festival appearances remaining on their schedule for this year. See their tour schedule here.

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