Ritual Noise Abuse (R.N.A.) has been active for roughly five years, but for several decades, the musicians in the Albuquerque-based band have performed in other popular heavy musical projects, and the experience shows. R.N.A. guitarist Jespah Torres and bassist Gordo Uribe split the difference pretty evenly when it comes to vocals, attacking the senses with two sets of distinct — and sometimes disgusting — voices and lyrics. Ever since he was in high school, Justin Andrus has proven he could hang with the best drummers in town, and like a batch of prison hooch, his style has gotten nastier and more potent over time. If you’d like to sign up for their next experiment in altering the genetics of metal, observation sessions are scheduled at locations across New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Colorado this summer. Their blend of slow, Sabbath-like riffs balanced with notes of death metal and grindcore is sure to make you stagger to the groove.
Will you describe your sound for us?
In the quagmire of genres, I guess we are Death Grind, but there are a lot of our personal influences involved. We have bluesy guitar solos, grooved-up, sludgy riffs and blistering blast beats, all mixed together to get everyone’s heads banging. We could play a million notes at a million miles an hour and fill our songs with breakdowns, but someone else is already doing that. We just wanna have a good time playing our own twisted style of metal, and we hope you enjoy yourselves and break yer necks to our tidal wave of riffs.
What are your favorite venues to play and why?
We love The Launchpad, Ren’s Den, Moonlight Lounge and Blackwall Gallery. We love these places because they are the best of the best locally. They put on locals of all music styles, and they are great if you are a touring band as well. Great people doing great things for Burque’s music scene.
What are your lyrics about?
They run the spectrum from political to comical to fantastical to an anthem about the very New Mexican tradition of enjoying a cerveza at a matanza. We have two singers, so lyrically, we can become a two-headed monster, expressing opposing points of view. A cacophony of voices full of call and response and trade-offs. Feel free to sing along!
What bands or genres inspire your music?
Ok … at this point, I should say that this is Gord [Uribe]. So these are my influences: ‘90s old-school death metal full of giant riffs, Black Sabbath, ISIS, Napalm Death, Obituary, Entombed and so many others. I always draw a blank with this question, larf.
What is the best show you have ever played and why?
We are fortunate to have been given the opportunity to share the stage with some pretty big names: Suffocation, the Cynic/Atheist show. Most recently, though, we got to share the stage with the Cavalera Brothers on tour [playing songs from their] Sepultura years. That one included Necrot, Deadheat and the homies in Street Tombs.
Check out Ritual Noise Abuse live at the Eclipse performance space on the Youtube series “After the Eclipse TV” here:
You can listen to the album Too Ripped to Shred on Spotify here or on Apple Music here.
Follow Ritual Noise Abuse on Instagram here and on their YouTube channel here.
You can catch them live this month at Ren’s Den in Albuquerque with locals Egregious and Belligerence on May 28 and at Juggernaut Music in Gallup with Dogs Throw Spears and Forbidden Witchery on May 29.