Armand Hammer – Haram

The opener sets the terms: a soul loop chewed into fragments, drums that hit and vanish, Woods and Elucid trading verses about surveillance and petty humiliations without raising their voices. The title references a German soccer star turned criminal, the kind of lateral reference the album trades in, and the verses pile up details about rotting infrastructure and bodies turned into data. It works as an entry because the beat is almost inviting before it curdles.

Ninety seconds of Woods listing indignities in a voice so flat it could be reading a grocery list, over a beat that sounds like a sample played backward through a broken speaker. The roaches are literal and metaphorical, and the track refuses to clarify which.

The closest thing to a single: a hypnotic loop with a sung hook from Kayana, and verses from both rappers that almost cohere into narrative before splintering. The production here is less skeletal than elsewhere, the vocal sample repeating until it becomes the song's spine, and the writing locks into pockets that feel like rapping rather than recitation. If any track was built for repeat plays, it is this one.

Woods alone over a beat that sounds like Alchemist left the worst takes in the mix on purpose: a bass note that throbs too loud, a piano phrase that cuts off mid-bar, percussion that suggests drums without committing. The verse catalogs colonial theft and ecological collapse without thesis statements, trusting the images to connect. It works because the production makes the decay audible.

Fielded's sung hook is the only warmth on the album, a wordless melody that would sound comforting if the beat underneath were not rotting in real time. Elucid's verse is a scramble of syllables about food scarcity and gentrification, the kind of writing that prioritizes rhythm over clarity, and it mostly lands. The track sags slightly because the mood is by now familiar and the hook does not add enough.

Earl Sweatshirt co-produces and delivers the sparest beat on the album, just a bass note and silence. Elucid raps about surveillance and paranoia, cadence chopped into fragments, no room for breath. It is two minutes of pure suffocation, and it works because nothing else this minimal would survive as a track.

A two-minute interlude that does not announce itself as one: Alchemist loops a string phrase that never resolves, Woods and Elucid trade bars about memory and displacement, and the track ends before it starts. It is the kind of writing that assumes poetry without committing to it, and the brevity is mercy.

Woods raps about gentrification and dead bodies with the same affectless delivery, over a beat that sounds like Alchemist sampled a construction site and forgot to add drums. The metaphor is scaffolding as the infrastructure of displacement, the temporary structures that hold up the permanent theft, and the writing earns the conceit. The production here is among the most abrasive on the album, which makes it a highlight for listeners who want the record to challenge rather than soothe.

Earl Sweatshirt guests and matches the mood without imitating the style, his verse a knotted interior monologue that prioritizes sound over sense. Alchemist gives the track more breathing room than most: a ghostly vocal loop, drums that almost swing, enough space for the verses to land without crowding. It is the album's structural midpoint and the closest thing to a climax, which means it is still denser and stranger than most rap records attempt. The writing from all three rappers is sharp, images of falling and catching oneself before impact repeating until the metaphor becomes physical.

Curly Castro and Amani join Woods and Elucid for the longest track on the album, and the guest verses add new textures without breaking the mood. Castro raps like he is explaining something the listener should already know, syllables stacking into dense runs, and Amani's hook is less sung than muttered. The production is more layered here, multiple loops overlapping, and the track justifies its length by building rather than repeating.

Quelle Chris guests and delivers the closest thing to levity, his verse about mundane failures and small victories cutting against the album's relentless grimness. The beat is among Alchemist's most straightforward, a loop that almost sounds like a sample from a better time, and the track works as a pressure valve. Chris's verse is funny without breaking the mood, and the writing from Woods and Elucid leans into the everyday rather than the apocalyptic.

A late-album come-down that does not come down, just more of the same suffocated sound, verses about labor and exhaustion over a beat that feels like it is running out of batteries. It works as mood but not as song, and by this point the album has made its case twice over. Filler by default because nothing new is added.

Ninety seconds naming the man who destroyed working-class neighborhoods to build highways, over a beat that sounds like Alchemist recorded it in a tunnel. The verses are pointed but the brevity is frustrating; the track feels like a sketch that should have been developed or cut.

The closer is the longest track and the least skeletal: a mournful loop that almost sounds like resolution, verses that catalog loss without dramatizing it, and a fade-out that feels like the album giving up rather than ending. Woods and Elucid both deliver some of their densest writing here, images of family and failure compressed into bars that require multiple listens to parse. It works as a closer because it refuses to resolve the tension the album built, no catharsis or thesis statement, just the sound of two rappers still rapping after everything has been said. The production here is almost beautiful, which makes it the outlier, and the mood is exhaustion rather than dread. It is the right ending even if it arrives too late to save the back half from sagging.