Butcher Babies have released NIGHTBLOOM, their sixth studio album, through Judge & Jury Records. Out October 2, 2026, the ten-song record grew from a planned EP into a collection rooted in vocalist Heidi Shepherd’s personal history, including her divorce, past relationships and decision to leave California.
Shepherd’s experience with therapy helped shape the writing. In the album announcement, she described stepping away from social media and examining memories she had suppressed for years. Writing gave her somewhere to put the emotions those sessions uncovered. The songs allowed her to revisit difficult experiences and give them a different place in her life. “This new album isn’t about the suffering; it’s about the survival,” she said. The album’s title reflects that process of finding growth during periods she had struggled to get through.
Some songs began before those sessions. Shepherd started writing “Leaving California” in July 2020, as friends, family and people in her industry moved away from the state she had expected to call home permanently. Her own departure also involved leaving a relationship, making the move part of a larger change. While driving out of town, she hummed the chorus into her phone’s voice recorder. In the statement accompanying its video, she recalled the uncertainty and excitement of leaving a familiar life behind. The song developed from an idea she captured while that transition was actually happening.
“Sincerity” reaches back to an earlier separation. Shepherd told Metal Covenant that it concerns her divorce and the moment she first raised the possibility of ending the marriage. She connected marrying young to expectations surrounding her Mormon upbringing in Utah. The separation became part of a much wider change: she left the church, moved away and eventually pursued music. Writing the song meant reconsidering a conversation whose consequences extended well beyond the relationship itself.
“Lost In Your Touch” examines another difficult period, this time involving guitarist Henry Flury. In the same interview, Shepherd described watching him fall in love with someone else during a breakup in 2015, while they remained in the same band. She eventually shared the song with him, turning an experience they had both lived through into something they could work on together. Shepherd recalled that Flury told her he was proud of her for writing it.
Benson produced NIGHTBLOOM, with Flury, Joe Rickard and Neil Sanderson serving as co-producers. Cameron Pierce Mizell and Evan McKeever contributed additional production to “Songbird.” Flury described a writing approach focused on making each part, layer and lyric serve the story.
The album’s scope changed as the material developed. Speaking with 92.7 WQLZ in August, in an interview transcribed by Blabbermouth, Shepherd explained that the band had originally intended to make an EP while beginning work with a new label. The response to its first song, released in 2024, encouraged them to continue. Returning home from touring gave the musicians time to sit together in the studio and develop more ideas. Those sessions expanded the smaller project into the ten songs released on NIGHTBLOOM.
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