As Butcher Babies prepare to release Nightbloom, Heidi Shepherd spoke to MetalTalk. Having spent considerable time looking backwards to some of her life’s darkest moments, she reveals her most personal album yet. For Heidi Shepherd, Nightbloom feels like an act of catharsis. Shaped through therapy and intense self-reflection, the album channels some of the most difficult chapters of her life into a deeply personal and raw body of work.
The album grew out of a period when Heidi Shepherd was forced to look back at experiences she had spent years putting to one side. Therapy brought some of those memories back into focus, but songwriting gave her somewhere to put them.
“The album, for me personally, is pretty much an autobiography.”
That is a theme Heidi Shepherd returns to repeatedly throughout our conversation. A genuine sincerity runs through the way she discusses Nightbloom. Nothing feels rehearsed or packaged. Instead, she speaks openly about a record that only emerged after starting therapy for the first time in 2024.
Like many, she discovered that revisiting old memories can drag long-buried emotions back to the surface. What followed became a massive catalyst for creativity.
“Being able to put these emotions into songs has turned a lot of negative experiences and negative emotions into something positive.”
Music has always offered an outlet for emotions that can be difficult to articulate anywhere else. What makes Nightbloom land different is the degree to which Shepherd allows herself to sit with those feelings and examine them head-on.
Shepherd says therapy brought old memories back into focus and writing songs gave her a way to process those experiences. “Once I decided I was going to make these experiences into songs, the emotions just poured out. Nothing was forced at all. It was like a waterfall of emotions.”
Butcher Babies did not chase a rigid concept for the album, Shepherd explained how she opened the door and let years of buried experiences find their own path into the songs. The result is a record that embraces vulnerability rather than hiding behind it.
Heidi went on to capture the spirit of the project. “This new album isn’t about the suffering,” she said. “It’s about the survival.” Conversations around mental health often focus entirely on the pain itself.
Throughout our discussion, Shepherd consistently anchored us to what comes next, healing and growth, and shared her perspective on what emerges after weathering the storm. “I truly believe that the dark moments in our lives can shape us in positive ways,” she said.
Few songs capture that perspective more clearly than Broken & Beautiful. Discussing the track, Shepherd references Kintsugi, the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with gold. Instead of hiding the fractures, the process highlights them, making them a beautiful part of the history of the piece.
Shepherd describes songwriting as a way of turning those experiences into something positive. On Nightbloom, the past is not something she says she can erase. Instead, she has found a way to give it a place in the music.
Listening to Shepherd speak about therapy and self-discovery, Nightbloom feels like the product of somebody willing to face difficult truths rather than avoid them. Her openness carries weight because vulnerability is still too often mistaken for weakness.
Shepherd sees strength differently. She does not see resilience as pretending things are fine, or that pain doesn’t exist. For her, sometimes it means admitting something is not ok and confronting the uncomfortable truths.
That conversation about resilience naturally leads us towards Shepherd’s experiences as a woman in heavy music.
When she entered the industry in 2009, she remembers being told how women were supposed to dress, sound and behave if they wanted to succeed. Nearly two decades later, she has watched a new generation of women enter the scene with far fewer expectations about where they are supposed to fit.
Shepherd has been part of that change herself, but she is also conscious of how different her experience was at the beginning. There is a noticeable sense of pride when she talks about the younger women coming through now, particularly those who seem less willing to accept somebody else’s definition of what they should be.
Her voice becomes more animated when she talks about the younger women entering the industry. “No matter how many times somebody tells you ‘no’, you can still say yes to yourself.” The comment feels rooted in Shepherd’s own experiences navigating an industry that often tried to tell women where they fit.
That sense of purpose comes alive on stage. During a recent Butcher Babies European tour, Shepherd was performing Lost In Your Touch when she noticed someone in the crowd. Earlier in the show, the fan had been charging around the pit with relentless energy. Then the song began. As his friends lifted him up, tears streamed down his face while he sang every word back towards the stage.
For Heidi Shepherd, the moment was unforgettable. “All of that pain, everything I poured into these songs and all of those experiences I wrote about, dating all the way back to high school, suddenly felt worth it because of that exact moment.”
We have all felt that remarkable moment in music, when an artist writes from personal experience, and we find pieces of our own life hidden in the same words.
When she reflects on the experience, Shepherd speaks about the way performing these songs has changed her relationship with the memories behind them. “When I get on stage and play these songs, it gives new memories to events in my life. New memories, positive memories.”
Later, I ask whether Nightbloom feels like a love letter to her younger self.
Her response is immediate. “Yeah. That’s what we have described it as from the beginning.”
Butcher Babies released their new album, NIGHTBLOOM, on 2 October 2026 via Judge & Jury Records. For more details, visit ffm.to/nightbloom. The album single Blame It On The Wind has already surpassed one million Spotify streams.
