The scorecard
8.4/10 · Great
- Writing25%
- 9.0
- Production25%
- 8.5
- Delivery15%
- 8.0
- Cohesion15%
- 7.5
- Originality10%
- 8.5
- Replay value10%
- 8.0
Woods and Elucid layer surreal imagery over contemporary collapse with clarity and wit, from the title onward, never wasting a word across fifteen dense tracks.
JPEGMafia, El-P, Kenny Segal and seven others create a queasy, shifting landscape that moves from harsh industrial clatter to dreamy drift without losing the thread.
Both rappers navigate the fractured beats with varied flows, guests like El-P and Pink Siifu add genuine texture, though some features blur into the density.
The album moves in deliberate waves with real momentum despite eleven producers, and while the middle sags, the opening and final third justify the fifteen-track runtime.
The jam-session assembly and producer rotation push past the duo's own formula without abandoning their oblique, literary approach to dystopia.
The writing rewards close attention and the album has held up on year-end lists since release, though the hour-long runtime means most listeners return to key tracks rather than full runs.
Armand Hammer We Buy Diabetic Test Strips — The Collapse Got Here Before the Punchline
The title names a real economy: people selling medical supplies for cash because the insurance did not cover enough or the medication cost too much or the need outlasted the prescription. Armand Hammer open their sixth album inside that same precarity, not as a metaphor but as the fact pattern of 2023, and the fifteen tracks that follow treat American dysfunction the way most rap treats the block: as the ground you stand on, not the point you are making. Billy Woods and Elucid have always written from the edge of things, but We Buy Diabetic Test Strips widens the lens and tightens the language at the same time, building a record that is both their most accessible and their most formally ambitious. Where Haram worked one mood hard, Test Strips brings in eleven producers and nearly as many guests, recorded in what Elucid described as a jam session: rappers meeting for the first time, drifting off into their own sonic worlds over pre-recorded beats. The result is a record that pulls in a dozen directions but still moves forward, a quality that separates it from the duo's previous work and from the careful, self-contained albums that dominate independent rap. The thesis here is that this approach works, that the churn and the guest list and the length do not diffuse the duo's strengths but extend them, and that Test Strips represents the clearest argument Armand Hammer have made for what their kind of writing can do when the production opens up and the room fills with voices.
Eleven Producers, One Panic
The production here does not sound like a collective effort so much as a rotation of distinct hands, each one warping the frame before passing it on. JPEGMafia handles four tracks, including the opener and closer, and his work sets the tone: harsh, digital, unsteady, beats that feel like they are pulling apart and reassembling in real time. El-P produces and raps on The Gods Must Be Crazy, bringing the industrial churn he has been refining since the early 2000s on records like Run the Jewels 2, all metallic percussion and buried loops. Kenny Segal, a frequent collaborator, lands the moodiest stretch with Total Recall, where the beat drifts into jazz-adjacent abstraction without losing the drums.
Child Actor, DJ Haram, Preservation and five others fill out the tracklist, and the range is wide: from the queasy electronics of Trauma Mic to the almost soulful loops underneath I Keep a Mirror in My Pocket, which Preservation produces with enough space for Cavalier to add a verse that feels like an actual conversation rather than a guest spot. The variety works because none of the producers try to smooth the duo into a single sound; instead, each one builds a small room for Woods and Elucid to work in, and the rappers adjust without compromising.
The writing is where the album earns its length. Woods and Elucid both deal in oblique, image-heavy verses that require attention, and across fifteen tracks they never flatten into a single mode. Woods tends toward the surreal and the historical, pulling references from film and politics and collapsing them into observations about the present; Elucid works more inward, self-reflective but not confessional, building verses that loop back on themselves without losing momentum. Neither rapper prioritizes clarity in the conventional sense, but both are specific, and the specificity is what makes the density tolerable: these are not abstract mood pieces but very pointed descriptions of how it feels to live in a culture where the medical supplies have a cash value and the dystopia is too mundane to even register as shock.
The guest verses are uneven. El-P, Pink Siifu and Moor Mother understand the assignment and add real weight; JPEGMafia contributes production and a verse on the second track that sharpens the chaos rather than filling space. Curly Castro on Empire BLVD fits the duo's style closely enough that his appearance feels like an extension rather than an interruption. But some features blur into the background, and the updated version of the album removed Junglepussy from two tracks for unknown reasons, which suggests the original sequencing was not as final as it felt.
The album has filler. At least three tracks in the middle stretch do not justify their existence beyond maintaining the mood, and the hour-long runtime means the replay value leans toward individual cuts rather than full-run listens. But the weaknesses are of excess, not of caution, and Test Strips succeeds more often than it sags.
The Album That Does Not Sequence Like a Statement
Test Strips does not build to a climax or pace itself like a narrative; it moves in waves, peaking early and late with sag in the middle, and the flow between songs is more about texture than momentum. The opening three tracks establish the sound, setting the fractured digital tone before sharpening the paranoia, then shifting into jazz drift without losing the unease. The sequence works because each track rewrites the mood slightly before moving on, and the album never settles into a single feeling long enough to become predictable.
The middle sags. Tracks seven through nine maintain the atmosphere but add little; the longest cut circles without destination, a beat that drifts and verses that do not punch through the murk. Even in its updated form, one track is filler, existing to keep the album moving rather than to say something new.
The final third recovers. The back half features the album's most overtly political moment, a track that works as both a standalone single and a piece of the whole. The Key Is Under the Mat closes the original fifteen-track version with production that mirrors the opener, and the circular structure is deliberate enough to feel earned. The bonus track stretches nearly nine minutes but plays more like an epilogue than a resolution, and the album does not need it.
Where the Duo Bet on Scale and Mostly Won
We Buy Diabetic Test Strips is the best Armand Hammer album and the one most likely to frustrate listeners who valued the duo's earlier austerity. It ranks above Haram because it takes more risks and succeeds at most of them, trading the locked-in focus of that record for a wider, messier approach that reflects the collaborative process Elucid described: talented rappers in a room, drifting off into their own worlds, pulled back together by the duo's writing. The album is for listeners who can handle density and who trust that oblique writing is not the same as empty writing; it is not for anyone who needs hooks or clear narratives or albums that stay under forty minutes.
It has aged well in the year since release, appearing on multiple year-end lists and holding up on return listens, though the length means most people will return to five or six key tracks rather than the full hour. The writing is sharp enough that the album works even when the production does not fully land, and the production is varied enough that the album never feels like a retread of past work.
Start with the second track, the El-P collaboration, and the Pink Siifu and Moor Mother feature, which capture the range without requiring full commitment. If those tracks work, the album works. If they do not, nothing else here will convert you. For the next listen, go back to Haram to hear what the duo sound like when they lock into one producer and one mood, or forward to anything Billy Woods has done solo to hear the writing without the collaborative sprawl. Test Strips proves that Armand Hammer can scale up without diluting what makes them worth hearing, but it also proves that more is not always better, just different, and the difference here is enough to matter.
Track by track
Track Listing
Landlines
StandoutJPEGMafia opens the album with fractured digital noise, drums that stutter and restart, and a beat that sounds like it is being assembled in real time. Woods and Elucid both deliver verses that set the tone: oblique, image-heavy, uninterested in clarity for its own sake. The production is harsh enough to signal that this will not be an easy listen, but structured enough to keep the rapping in focus.
Woke Up and Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die
StandoutThe title is the hook and the thesis: a question posed to a phone that cannot answer but will not stop listening. JPEGMafia produces and raps, and his verse sharpens the paranoia without overstating it. Woods and Elucid trade lines about surveillance and self-destruction, and the beat, all digital clatter and buried loops, never settles into a groove. This is the album's best argument for what the expanded collaborator list can do: three rappers working in different modes over a beat that refuses to resolve, and the tension holds.
The Flexible Unreliability of Time and Memory
StandoutChild Actor produces the album's first real drift into atmosphere, a beat built on keys and texture rather than drums, and the title describes the effect: the track feels suspended, unmoored from the urgency of the previous two songs. Woods opens with a verse about forgetting and being forgotten, Elucid follows with observations about self-perception and performance, and the mood is contemplative without losing edge. The sequencing is smart: after two harsh tracks, this one breathes.
When It Doesn’t Start With a Kiss
SolidJPEGMafia and Pudge co-produce a beat that pulls in two directions at once, half digital glitch and half soul loop, and the verses match the instability. The title suggests romance or its absence, but the writing is too oblique to settle on a single subject. The track works as a bridge between the atmospheric third song and the guest-heavy stretch that follows, but it does not stand out on its own.
I Keep a Mirror in My Pocket
StandoutPreservation produces the closest thing to a traditional rap beat on the album, with loops that sound almost soulful and drums that stay steady. Cavalier guests and delivers a verse that fits the duo's style without imitating it, observational and specific, and the track benefits from the breathing room. This is one of the few songs on Test Strips that could work as a single, accessible without being simple, and the sequencing places it right before the album shifts back into harsher territory.
Trauma Mic
StandoutPink Siifu guests over DJ Haram production that is all distortion and buried vocals, a beat that sounds like it is being played through a broken speaker. The title names the subject: the microphone as a site of pain, the performance as wound and witness at once. Siifu's verse is delivered in a half-sung, half-spoken cadence that contrasts with the duo's more direct rapping, and the effect is unsettling in a way that serves the album. This was the first single, and it is a good representation of the record's range: harsh, strange, uncompromising, but never empty.
Niggardly (Blocked Call)
WeakAugust Fanon produces the longest track on the original fifteen-song version, just over four minutes, and it feels longer. The beat circles without building, the verses meander without landing, and the title's provocation does not pay off in the writing. This is the album's clearest example of filler: a track that maintains the mood but adds nothing new, and one that could be cut without loss.
The Gods Must Be Crazy
StandoutEl-P produces and raps, bringing the industrial churn and metallic percussion he has perfected over two decades. His verse is sharp and self-aware, Woods and Elucid match his intensity, and the track works as both a showcase for El-P's production style and a collaboration that feels organic rather than assembled. The sequencing is deliberate: after the sag of the previous track, this one recovers momentum and carries it forward. This was the third single, released three days before the album, and it is one of the clearest entry points for listeners unfamiliar with Armand Hammer's oblique approach.
Y’all Can’t Stand Right Here
WeakMessiah Musik and Steel Tipped Dove produce a beat that is more texture than structure, and the updated version of the album removed Junglepussy's verses for unknown reasons, leaving only Woods and Elucid. Even in its revised form, the track feels like filler, a piece of the album's middle stretch that maintains atmosphere without adding substance.
Total Recall
StandoutKenny Segal produces the album's moodiest track, a beat that drifts into jazz abstraction without losing the drums entirely. Woods and Elucid both deliver verses that pull from science fiction and memory, the title referencing the Philip K. Dick story and the film adaptations, and the writing is dense even by this album's standards. The track rewards close attention but does not work as casual listening, and the sequencing places it after the album's weakest stretch, which helps it land harder than it would earlier in the tracklist.
Empire BLVD
SolidCurly Castro guests over production by Green, a beat built on loops and static that stays low in the mix. Castro's verse fits the duo's style closely, observational and image-heavy, and the track works as a continuation of the previous song's mood rather than a shift. The title references a Brooklyn street, and the writing grounds itself in place without becoming a tour guide. Solid but not essential.
Don’t Lose Your Job
StandoutBlack Noi$e and Jeff Markey produce the album's most overtly political track, with Pink Siifu and Moor Mother both contributing verses that sharpen the critique without sloganeering. The title is straightforward, the subject is labor and precarity, and the beat is harsh enough to match the urgency. Moor Mother's verse is the standout, delivered with a cadence that cuts through the noise, and the track works as both a statement and a song. This is one of the album's best arguments for the collaborative approach: three guests, two producers, and a clear subject, and none of it feels crowded.
Supermooned
SolidDJ Haram co-produces with Elucid, and the beat is more minimal than most of the album, drums and bass with little else. The verses are short, the mood is tense, and the track works as a palate cleanser before the final two songs. Not filler, but not a peak either.
Switchboard
SolidSebb Bash produces a beat that pulls from the album's harsher moments, all distortion and buried samples, and the verses from Woods and Elucid return to the paranoia and surveillance themes that opened the record. The title suggests connection and redirection, operators and networks, and the writing follows through. The track does not stand out in a crowded tracklist, but it earns its place in the final stretch.
The Key Is Under the Mat
StandoutJPEGMafia produces and guests on the closer, mirroring the opener and creating a circular structure that feels deliberate. The beat is fractured digital noise, the verses are dense and unresolved, and the track ends without resolution, which is the point. As a closer for the original fifteen-track version, it works: the album that opened with a question ends with another one, and the sound that started harsh stays harsh. The title suggests easy access, a hidden key, but the album has been anything but easy, and the irony lands.
