Blood Hoard has been active for about a year and a half, but they’ve already amassed a good following of fans of all ages who have a healthy thirst for metal. Nevaeh Lesperance (vocals), Adonis Sanchez (guitar, backup vocals), Avrian Clauss (guitar), Andy Lopez (bass) and Frank Delwiche (drums) are in their early 20s, but their music is heavily influenced by old-school death metal. What is death metal, you ask? They describe the genre really well, and they give us insight into how the younger metal crowds like to dance these days. For a band with such violent subject matter and extremely aggressive crowds attending their live shows, Blood Hoard are about as nice as any band I’ve interviewed. They are kind, enthusiastic about music, and they have a feel-good sense of humor about their band and extreme metal culture in general. For example, during a Halloween-themed extreme music show last night, Lesperance belted out her signature guttural vocals dressed as Snow White, and the rest of the band were dressed like Disney dwarves. A Blood Hoard concert is gruesome, it’s frightening at times, and it’s always fun. Make no mistake, though, this music is heavy enough to turn your skin to mush if you’re not careful.
Will you describe your sound for us?
We play brutal death metal. I would describe our sound as similar to the bands Stabbing and Devourment. We take a lot of inspiration from Texas death metal bands. [Albuquerque] had a lot of big, popular bands in the ’90s up until like the 2000s, but we don’t have a big death metal scene here in New Mexico [these days], so Texas death metal is really the closest sound we want to replicate. Death metal could be aggressive vocals, a lot of blast beats on the drums, all that good stuff. Fast playing, fast riffs and heavy vocals.
Lesperance: I really want people to be shocked, because no one recognizes that I’m a girl at first, until they have to do a double-look. I like to shock people, I think it gets the crowd going because they’re just wowed. I can jump around from low to high vocals. When I first started doing vocals, I would practice Bloodbath, Cannibal Corpse and, like, Carnifex. I like to get the surprise reaction. Just, like, mouth drop.
The first time we played here at Ren’s Den, people asked, “[Lesperance] isn’t in a band, is she?” And we were like, “Yeah, she’s our singer.” And then when she got up there, they were way surprised. So yeah, they kept booking us after that. She tries to do pig squeal sounds and she has this alligator sound that she likes. She makes it sound pretty deep and kind of gory. Sounds like autotune, but it’s not auto-tuned. She does them really low, but now her high pig squeals are very, very high.
What are your favorite venues to play and why?
Definitely, Ren’s den. We also play Black Wall Gallery, which is pretty good, but for bigger shows, we want to come here to Ren’s. We obviously like playing Launchpad. We played one time over there with Bonginator and Frog Mallet. That was a great show.
At Ren’s they have a big hardcore dancing scene, and that’s what we really want to have in our crowds. More of the “crowd killing,” more of the brutal things we like: two-stepping, just jumping into the crowd having fun. A lot of throwing yourself at people and stuff for fun. It’s not serious.
What are the rules? Is there an etiquette to hardcore dancing?
Don’t take it personal. Don’t try and do it with intention. Don’t try and actually seek someone out unless they’re moshing with you. If they are, then it’s okay to hit them. If you see people just kind of standing around, you can jump into them, but don’t actively go after them, because they probably don’t want that.
What are your lyrics about?
They’re about basically hoarding dead bodies and just, like, brutal decapitation and saving bodies as relics. Basically just, yeah, hoard of blood, hoarding all the blood and everything. We take a lot of inspiration from the show “Hoarders.” But instead of, like, garbage and stuff, it’s bodies. The song “Gored to Goo” is basically what our band is about – brutalizing someone until they’re no longer recognizable. Nasty kind of stuff like that. Just until someone’s mush.
What bands or genres inspire your music?
Devourment, Stabbing, Dying Fetus, Sanguisugabogg, it’s hard to say. [All laugh.]
Our drummer gets a lot of influences from rock ’n’ roll. These guys, they all played in a jazz band together. Avrian, Andy, and Frank all played in jazz band [in school] and we were in concert band and marching band. I had a lot of classical training for the guitar. For me, it helped a lot with technique and just picking up things faster.
What’s the best show you’ve ever played, and why?
Honestly, the one we got most popular off of was definitely the Launchpad with Frog Mallet. We were barely starting as a band. It was, like, our second show, but we were at our best.
Definitely, when we went to Texas. We played really well in El Paso, yeah. We played our longest set ever there, I think it was like 45 minutes or something, because there were only two bands on the lineup. We had to play for a while, and every song was pretty good.
Our next shows are Nov. 1 and Nov. 20 at Ren’s Den. Support local bands, come see us play and mosh hard!
Listen Up:
Blood Hoard’s music is available on major streaming platforms including Spotify and Apple Music here. You can also link to their first single “Hoard of Blood”on their Instagram page – including photos of last night’s show – or keep up with the horrorshow by visiting Blood Hoard on Facebook. Visit their YouTube channel to see brutal live content.
Check out a video of Blood Hoard live at Ren’s Den last January here.
For a unique look at Albuquerque’s underground music scene, check out Blood Hoard live at the River Mud Mosh in July 2025 here.