Al-Namrood is a name I've heard a few times, but until Worship the Degenerate dropped into my review queue, I'd never heard their music. This is their seventh full-length album, though at just under 26 minutes, the term "full-length" is a bit of a stretch. Anyway, these guys are from Saudi Arabia, if you didn't know that, and bring a lot of traditional Middle Eastern rhythms and instrumentation to their sound to the extent that they are essentially a folk/black metal band, just not the "folk" that is more commonly married to black metal. They still feature evil, raspy vocals and a guitar sound that has the cold sterility you typically get in black metal without actually doing much tremolo picking. The production on Worship the Degenerate is thin with little bass (another black metal hallmark) but I like the drums because they have an organic sound, not the plastic blasting this style is known for. The songwriting ranges from standard black metal with a few Middle Eastern flourishes ("Worship the Degenerate" "Guerillas") all the way to droning instrumentals ("Free Will") that sound like something I imagine I would hear in a bazaar, but with some electric guitar. Speaking of "Free Will," this song, which ends Worship the Degenerate abruptly, like the recording was switched off before the band was done playing. I thought maybe my promo included the wrong file, but I listened to it on the band's Bandcamp site, and it cuts off in the same spot, so it was clearly intentional. Weird. Anyway, I don't hate Worship the Degenerate, but the black metal is generic, and adding Middle Eastern influences has been done by Melechesh and they do it better. If you want black metal that isn't amazing but isn't the same old, same old, you might want to give it a spin.