BUTCHER BABIES will release their new album, "Nightbloom", on October 2 via Judge & Jury Records. The video for latest single "Blame It On The Wind" is out now.
The record has an unusually specific origin. Frontwoman Heidi Shepherd traces it to a period she could not talk her way out of.
"A couple of years ago, I found myself in a web of darkness that I couldn't shake," she said. "A vicious cycle of self-loathing and doubt, all while my support system did everything in their power to remind me of who I am. I desperately wanted to see in myself what they saw in me. I needed a way to look in the mirror and find love for who was looking back at me. So, I shut off social media, and for the first time in my life, I started therapy."
What followed became the album. "Therapy sent me down a rabbit hole that I didn't know existed. Over the course of a year, I was flooded with memories of trauma and emotions that I had suppressed. I started to feel that in this overwhelming darkness, these memories needed a way out. So, I started writing."
The list of what she wrote about is not vague: a marriage that failed more than twenty years ago, the road to that divorce, watching the love of her life fall for someone else in front of her, a one-night stand that had haunted her for decades, a former boyfriend who took his own life, being ostracised by the Mormon church while neighbours shamed her family for standing by her, and more recently the loss of a twenty-year friendship.
"While reliving and experiencing some of my darkest moments, I started to finally bloom," Shepherd said. "This new album isn't about the suffering; it's about the survival… 'Nightbloom' is a reminder that not everything beautiful needs perfect sunshine to flourish."
Guitarist Henry Flury frames it in production terms. "Writing with purpose. That was the overall theme of this album. Each part, layer, lyric was crafted with purpose and focus. Nothing was unimportant. 'Nightbloom' is our most important work we've ever done in BUTCHER BABIES."
Howard Benson produced, with Joe Rickard, Neil Sanderson and Flury co-producing; Cameron Pierce Mizell and Evan McKeever added production on "Songbird".
Formed in 2009 and now based in Las Vegas, BUTCHER BABIES have built a career on thrash and groove metal aggression welded to melodic hooks, across "Goliath" (2013), "Take It Like A Man" (2015), "Lilith" (2017) and the 2023 double album "Eye For An Eye... / ...'Til The World's Blind". A U.S. run alongside Chad Gray of MUDVAYNE begins in late summer and extends into autumn, with a Louder Than Life appearance in Kentucky.
"Nightbloom" track listing:
- Lost In Your Touch
- Sincerity
- Blame It On The Wind
- Broken & Beautiful
- Are You Waiting Up?
- Black Clouds Over Georgia
- Fever In My Neck
- Songbird
- Leaving California
- Black Dove
Source: blabbermouth.net