You might notice that some places credit this to ‘Butcher Babies & Judge & Jury’. That’s the label it’s being released on, but it’s also the partnership of Howard Benson and Neil Sanderson. Effectively, it’s an in-house production and distribution model that serves to aid in greater creative and financial independence for its artists. For the purposes of reconciling with the name given such prominence, think of it like a producer credit on a hip-hop song.
We bring that up because…well, it’s a Butcher Babies album; what fascinating tidbits were you expecting otherwise? It’s the first one with Heidi Shepherd as sole singer after Carla Harvey left in 2024; that’s something, right? It’ll have to be, ‘cause there’s not much else to go on.
At least, in terms of actual output, NIGHTBLOOM is trying to suitably kick this new phase off. Butcher Babies’ original gambit as radio-metal provocateurs always felt misguided, so ditching that and sticking to the big songs is automatically a better move. Shepherd does a good job of heading them up, too, for the most part. Lost In Your Touch starts things off, in which she yearns well as the jilted side of a love triangle. Likewise, the aptitude for a strong stance continues on Sincerity and Blame It On The Wind, the latter cresting Shepherd’s upper limit for intensity and wrenching out some real, no-messing-about effort.
Unfortunately, said upper limit can be treated as a suggestion rather than a fact sometimes, as Shepherd seems to believe she’s more versatile than she is. She’s a broad powerhouse, though even that has its limits, namely when detail or a step off track is required. Black Clouds Over Georgia is emblematic of that, a country-metal air-grabber where Shepherd avoids going full southern belle, but enunciates hers ‘R’s on the chorus to the point of tripping over them when too many are all together. Black Dove is another iffy one, mostly thanks to Shepherd’s coarse, stubborn growl that sound more like she’s pushing out a particularly tricky dump. It’s the last song, too, and the point where some more proficient gutturals for Harvey are most missed.
It seems to be the case overall that NIGHTBLOOM does its job when inside the alt-metal lines, and reliably spins out as soon as it leaves them. The production is the same, albeit carrying much less of a surprise factor. As the collaborative fruits of a producer whose recent CV includes Saliva and Hoobastank, and the guitarist of Three Days Grace, it was bound to happen. Judge & Jury’s tin ear for modernity makes itself known whenever the impulse is acted on. The synth punching through Are You Waiting Up? can only presumed to be aping power-metal, but it’s so cheap, clanky and unable to blend with anything else that you’d be better off scrapping it entirely. As for Black Clouds Over Georgia, the juxtaposition between a pretty sweet guitar wail and its accompanying trap shrug is pretty stark.
Under more ‘normal’ circumstances, things do improve. There’s still an encompassing glaze of grease to deal with, but otherwise, Butcher Babies can make fine hard rock songs. Even if you’d never scream their praises from on high, Lost In Your Touch and Sincerity are good examples of the radio-ready format, especially as far as choruses are concerned. As well, the nu-metal leanings of Fever In My Neck and the swift punch of Songbird have a nice bit of power to them. Most bizarrely of all, the bass on NIGHTBLOOM is regularly present and firm, never dipping too far out of the ordinary, but achieving more than this style tends to.
At its core, there appears to be an album that’s trying so hard to impress and nudge up what’s been a historically meh bar. It’s just a shame that Butcher Babies get inundated with so many roadblocks and pitfalls, and are ultimately forced back to a degree that’s hard to recover from. What tears it is how there doesn’t seem to be the same laziness that afflicts a lot of radio-metal. With a tightened skillset and production in a groove-metal or melodeath vein, the effort would reap way more rewards. As it stands now, NIGHTBLOOM is a conscientious display from Butcher Babies, but also a monumentally flawed one.
For fans of: Breaking Benjamin, In This Moment, Stitched Up Heart
‘NIGHTBLOOM’ by Butcher Babies is released on 2nd October on Judge & Jury Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
