Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - HARAM ALBUM REVIEW
For the vegetarians and PETA empathizers, I’m sorry for the album cover. To me, this is one of the boldest covers I’ve seen in the past couple of years.
Before we start the review itself and who Armand Hammer and The Alchemist are, we need to go over the definition of haram. ‘Haram’ is an Islamic word that translates to ‘forbidden.’ This can refer to a couple different things. It’s either something sacred to which access is forbidden to the people who are not in a state of purity or who aren’t initiated into the sacred knowledge, or, in direct contrast, to evil and sinful actions that are forbidden to be done. It’s a heavy word in the Muslim community, and I have to admit, I don’t wanna sit here and dissect Islam and the Muslim religion simply because I’m not familiar with it.
Since we got that out of the way, let’s get into the music itself. Armand Hammer consists of two New York rappers, Elucid and Billy Woods, the latter I’ve covered on this site before, and he’s also shown love to my review of his last project with Moor Mother, BRASS. On the production side, recent Grammy-nominee The Alchemist has his first collaboration project since that Grammy-nominated project with Freddie Gibbs, Alfredo. Knowing Armand Hammer’s extremely consistent track record and Alchemist’s mythical status in rap, I had extremely high expectations for HARAM. In short, it lived up to the expectations. Scratch that, it surpassed my expectations.
As I stated earlier, ‘haram’ translates to ‘forbidden.’ That is the perfect descriptor of this project. Especially with the gruesome album art, it feels like we’ve stumbled upon an abandoned slaughterhouse, the remnants of the past only in the form of the two pig heads we see while listening to the album. Starting up with the production, Al killed it. I love how each track transitions. The album feels like one massive track sometimes, and I’m all for it. I seriously think that this is the best set of beats in a long time, and that includes his work on Alfredo. On the vocal side of things, both Woods and Elucid are at the top of their game. Their words enforce the overall eerie tone of the project, and there were many times where I just felt very uneasy, much like the cover makes me feel. I’d also like to note that the features are all amazing, especially the verses from Quelle Chris and Earl Sweatshirt, and it’s great to hear from Earl again, honestly.
As a whole project, HARAM is absolutely stellar. Alchemist’s psychedelic production mixed with Armand Hammer’s chilling bars make for an amazing display. The great features on here are just the icing on the cake. It’s really no question that this is the best hip-hop album of the year so far. Something would really have to blow me away to top this. If you’re a fan of dark hip-hop, HARAM is a perfect gateway into this.
9/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
HARAM is a BackWoodz Studioz release.
Before we start the review itself and who Armand Hammer and The Alchemist are, we need to go over the definition of haram. ‘Haram’ is an Islamic word that translates to ‘forbidden.’ This can refer to a couple different things. It’s either something sacred to which access is forbidden to the people who are not in a state of purity or who aren’t initiated into the sacred knowledge, or, in direct contrast, to evil and sinful actions that are forbidden to be done. It’s a heavy word in the Muslim community, and I have to admit, I don’t wanna sit here and dissect Islam and the Muslim religion simply because I’m not familiar with it.
Since we got that out of the way, let’s get into the music itself. Armand Hammer consists of two New York rappers, Elucid and Billy Woods, the latter I’ve covered on this site before, and he’s also shown love to my review of his last project with Moor Mother, BRASS. On the production side, recent Grammy-nominee The Alchemist has his first collaboration project since that Grammy-nominated project with Freddie Gibbs, Alfredo. Knowing Armand Hammer’s extremely consistent track record and Alchemist’s mythical status in rap, I had extremely high expectations for HARAM. In short, it lived up to the expectations. Scratch that, it surpassed my expectations.
As I stated earlier, ‘haram’ translates to ‘forbidden.’ That is the perfect descriptor of this project. Especially with the gruesome album art, it feels like we’ve stumbled upon an abandoned slaughterhouse, the remnants of the past only in the form of the two pig heads we see while listening to the album. Starting up with the production, Al killed it. I love how each track transitions. The album feels like one massive track sometimes, and I’m all for it. I seriously think that this is the best set of beats in a long time, and that includes his work on Alfredo. On the vocal side of things, both Woods and Elucid are at the top of their game. Their words enforce the overall eerie tone of the project, and there were many times where I just felt very uneasy, much like the cover makes me feel. I’d also like to note that the features are all amazing, especially the verses from Quelle Chris and Earl Sweatshirt, and it’s great to hear from Earl again, honestly.
As a whole project, HARAM is absolutely stellar. Alchemist’s psychedelic production mixed with Armand Hammer’s chilling bars make for an amazing display. The great features on here are just the icing on the cake. It’s really no question that this is the best hip-hop album of the year so far. Something would really have to blow me away to top this. If you’re a fan of dark hip-hop, HARAM is a perfect gateway into this.
9/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
HARAM is a BackWoodz Studioz release.
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