Armand Hammer & The Alchemist: Haram

- As residing president of Australia's Billy Woods Fan Club, the announcement of Armand Hammer's Haram excited me to no end. The New York rap duo, which sees Mr Woods teaming up with fellow abstract poet Elucid, have incremented group identity with each successive release. 2018's Paraffin laced nocturnal boom-bap with cryptic soothsaying before the colourful optimism of last year's Shrines eked shades of light from the duo's incessant darkness.

Haram comes as Armand Hammer's 5th full length in just under a decade, backed by wall-to-wall production from The Alchemist. A NY beatsmith for over twenty years, Al has seen recent shine with his grammy-nominated Freddie Gibbs collaboration, Alfredo, but boasts countless career credits ranging from Pharoahe Monch to Nas. His contributions here are a near perfect selection of rough-chopped samples and tense percussive loops, an ideal arena for the dense syllabic sparring of Woods and Elucid.

From the shrill vocal cut and lumbering kit of opener Sir Benni Miles, Haram grabs your attention and clutches it firmly abreast. Flows contort upon themselves while both MCs broach topics like a self-assured street preacher. Woods once again proves himself a master of opening lines, offsetting Elucid's scattered word paintings with narrative-based couplets that pose far more questions than they actually answer.

"Took the haze to church / frankincense and myrrh the whole thing was a blur / laughed at first"

⁃ Billy Woods, Black Sunlight

Billy's countless quotables unfurl into suggestive, slice-of-life vignettes with head-scratching moral implications. Falling Out The Sky talks of his first summer in LA, getting stoned and painting houses for an "enterprising white kid", while Squeegee tackles the fleeting nature of positive habits after running into old friends on a street corner. These experiences are always deeply personal, yet obscured by a veil of paranoia which leaves key details untold. While Woods' verses grapple with gritty realities, Elucid floats around the theoretical with a delivery that's far harder to grasp. His vocal inflections haven't always sat right with me on previous projects, but atop these beats there's clear cohesion. Alchemist's refined yet foundational approach allows the pair to stack flows into lyrical avalanches that are sure to impress even casual hip-hop listeners. Grouping its features together, Haram's most direct approach comes on Chicharrones, where Quelle Chris is given the track's majority to flip nursery-rhyme bars into a snide commentary on police brutality.

"If you off the pig, is you offin' pigs or offerin' figs?/ Oh, you big and bad? Blowin' hay and sticks, huffin' bricks./ Clip the snout, to spite the mouth, right the lips./ Put it on the spit, pig roast, who got jokes?"

⁃ Quelle Chris, Chicharrones

It's in moments like these that Haram deftly justifies its gory album cover, two severed pigs heads at a wet market, and Islamic implications of its title. This  is gritty street rap grappling with high-minded concepts, toeing the line and exploring taboo to shed light on the forbidden. Haram is easily Armand Hammer's most convincing album to date, demonstrating unparalleled ability from its members atop a lavish set of stunning instrumentals. The duo shows no signs of stopping in the new decade, and with rhymes like these, it'd be a shame if they did.

- Boddhi Farmer.
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