Interview with Al-Namrood
Tell us about your latest release: the main concept; what fans should expect; what were/are your goals with it:
The new album Wala’at which translates “Loyalties” clearly as the title states articulate the phenomena of utter loyalties , the theory behind it, the reason, motives, human psychology, real world situations and needs that contribute individual for utter loyalty.
Loyalty can be for and ideology, ethnicity, persons, places and intelligible aspects such as spirituality.
We designed this album to outcast a dark atmosphere, short timed tracks, to the point, and as assertive it can be. Musically no long intros, no time fillers, just a main 1 or 2 verses, chorus and some bridges between verse and chorus. we want to take the audience to s musical experience that remain catchy and remembering in the mind. our goal is obvious, express our thought through this music.
10 tracks put together for specific order, at some point the album sounds pure black atmospheric and other point the album sound punkish, thrash, with speedy riffs, all were put for a reason is to compile many elements into one package, yet they all serve the same purpose and main objective of alnamrood along with the past albums.
Did you have a specific sound in mind when you formed the band, or did that grow and evolve as you played together?
Of course, at the beginning we aimed at sharp trebley knife cutting sound, as noticed in our first album, then we explored more sound tones, exactly at the second album we standardized our tune. the Guitar is tuned to C standard, with 4th string being unwinded. this give mephisto (the guitarist) more flexibility to play a scale that is close to Arabian quarter scale and the to match it with other Arabian instruments such as Oud or Qanoon. the joining of our latest vocalist (Humbaba) added more ideas for the band, instead of having the traditional high pitch vocal, Humbaba successfully output a mid pitched clear projecting sound, yet rebelling and striking and vicious which fit the music overall atmosphere. Also, the idea of combining punk riffs was successful and stood aligned with band desired sound and concept.
How does your writing process normally work out?
We first start with music and based on music we decide what lyrics or concept to be fitted. the music writing either done by creating guitar line then combine the other instruments, sometimes it start from Arabian instrument idea then transformed into guitar riff. The person who create the main verse of the new song share it with the others for editing, then when a song is constructed, we start thinking of what words can describe that sound, lyrics take some time, as it may not be much beneficiary to our fans since we write in Arabic, but we do spend quite a time writing strong clauses and terms to be projected to by our vocalist.
When the music is written we save it on a software for record keeping, then we start recording, we do not have much technical knowledge in sound engineering, we tend to spend long time tweaking and testing until we reach to that raw in unforgiving, saturated guitar sound, other instruments come along faster when guitar sound is developed.we don’t process the sound so much, we just eq it, adjust gain, volume, presence etc…
What are your ambitions and how far do you want to push your band?
We are still fighting for our cause, our ambition created the band, not the other way around, so this band is a window for our war, philosophy, feelings and experiences. what we aim at exactly is to deliver a describing sound of that.
What are your influences/musical references and the impact those same influences had in your sound?
Our musical influences are broad All over the place, punk, Anarcho, Crust, Speed metal, First wave of Black metal. List from each Genre would be:
Dark Cabaret/Gypsy/Blues/folk/Jazz:
Edith Piaf, Screamin’Jay Hawkins, Tom waits, Johnny Cash, Cab Calloway, Taraf de Haïdouks , Hexvessel. Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Urban Voodoo Machine, Arabic Folklore /Arabic Mysticism, Umm Kulthum, Sadoon Jaber, Farid al-Atrash, Firouz,
Punk/Metal/Occultist Doom:
The Exploited, Discharge, G.B.H, UK Chaos, Broken Bones, Anti Cimex, Amebix, Doom, English Dogs, Venom, Sarcófago, Iron maiden, Mercyful Fate, Root, Sabbat(Jap) , Bathory, Darkthrone, Hellhammer, Midnight, Toxic Holocaust, Power from Hell, Blasphemy, Sodom, Kreator,, Melechesh, Coven, Old Candlemass, Black Sabath, Pentagram, Abysmal Grief, Acid Witch, Secret Chiefs 3, Destroyer666, Marduk, Nile.
What’s next for you?
Continue what we do and do what satisfy our self-actualization and self-achievement. after all music is a strong tool and expressive.