Armand Hammer’s latest full-length, Mercy, is a collaboration with The Alchemist and arrives on November 2025 via Backwoodz Studioz/Rhymesayers. For the past decade and a half, billy woods and Elucid have remained among the most prolific and consistent voices in avant-garde Hip Hop. Here, they reunite with The Alchemist, who previously produced their 2021-album Haram, to craft a record that trades expansive textures for tighter, more deliberate production. The result is an album that is at once accessible in its structure and dense in its lyricism.
Production throughout Mercy prioritizes mood over movement. The Alchemist uses sustained piano notes, low hums, sparse drums, and occasional unsettling loops to build spaces where words can breathe. On the opener “Laraaji,” a guitar vibrato hovers, the drums tread quietly, and Elucid and woods move through the beat with precision and restraint. There is no overdrive; the sound is patient. This approach gives the rappers’ voices room to weave — woods with his sharp, clipped sentences and Elucid with his winding, metaphor-cropped blocks.
The themes make themselves clear early: violence and dehumanisation that bleed into everyday routines. On tracks like “Nil by Mouth” the beat trudges slowly, the drum kit minimal, the sample looping until it seems to decay. Woods drops imagery of predators and tears; Elucid asks questions of survival. The production doesn’t soften the message — it frames it. The tension never resolves, and that tension is the point. On “Scandinavia,” kick drums crack like distant explosions, the beat deliberately skeletal, the rappers shifting their tone to match a claustrophobic pulse.
Guest features are carefully chosen and integrated. On “Calypso Gene,” Silka and Cleo Reed add an eerie choral hook, while the beat couches the track in gospel and funk touches. Elucid uses baptism imagery; woods draws lines around fences and excluded populations. Here the music opens slightly without losing grip. On “Crisis Phone” (with Pink Siifu) mournful strings crest, the hook is spoken, and the mood remains unsettled. No easy uplift is given.
Structurally, the album moves from darkness into light and back again. After the hardest tracks, “Dogeared” brings a quieter moment: the loop is minimal, more space surrounds the verses, and woods reflects on routine — domestic scenes, parenting, the weight of meaning in small acts. The Alchemist steps back, lets the rappers own the room. That shift opens a door into vulnerability. Then the record closes with “Super Nintendo,” built on a 16-bit synth motif. The music evokes nostalgia, the flow looks back, but the lyricism reminds us the past is tangled with current anxieties.
In the context of Armand Hammer’s catalog, Mercy is easier to enter than some of their more challenging records. We Buy Diabetic Test Strips was maximalist, sprawling, frenetic. Haram had its wild moments of abstraction. Here, The Alchemist seems more controlled, less overtly experimental. Some critics suggest this makes Mercy a step down in risk, noting that the beats don’t challenge the duo as much as past works. Still, the team’s craftsmanship remains elite. woods and Elucid trade bars with fluidity; they mirror each other’s rhythms and pull fresh nuance from years of collaboration.
Sound-wise, the album emphasises texture and space. Instrumentation is often minimal: echoing piano, looped vocals, a sparse beat, a ghost of a sample. The effect is haunted, patient. The lyricism hits with weight because it sits in clear room. When the production does swell, it does so strategically — such as on “California Games” (featuring Earl Sweatshirt), where flutes and wordless vocals intertwine over a splashy groove, or on “Longjohns,” where cosmic jazz-psych touches and choral refrains drift under the voices. Those moments open breath in an otherwise tight record.
The mood is one of urgent observation. Woods and Elucid examine systems of power—colonial wealth, generational trauma, technological dehumanisation—not as grand proclamations but as weather systems pressing on everyday life. Their writing turns public structures into private syntax: the confederate flag at a gas station, the pager explosion, bodies streaming on livestream, rent still due. The music emphasises this as ongoing: there’s no dismissal, no catharsis. The final track ends with a loop that simply cuts. You exit the album unsettled, which is the intention.
On a track like “Dogeared,” the question “What’s the role of a poet in times like these?” surfaces. The narrative then shifts to bacon grease in the pan, a puddle-hop of a child in New York City. That grounding in small moments gives the record its humanity. The instrumentation steps back; the rappers speak with quiet weight. When the beat leaves space, the lyrics gain air, they become tactile. It’s in this quiet that Mercy opens a bigger conversation.
Few hip-hop artists have been as consistently excellent as billy woods, Elucid, and their partnership in Armand Hammer. Year after year, they release albums that demand listening and reward concentrated attention. Their collaboration with The Alchemist has become a reliable line of elevation. On Mercy, their consistency is evident. The album may not expand radically in sound, but it refines. The production is calmer, the structures more defined, the voices sharper. For listeners seeking entrance, this record offers a strong point. For long-time fans, it demonstrates precision of craft.
There are trade-offs. Some tracks feel less explosive than the high-intensity moments on earlier albums. The controlled sonic palette means there’s fewer surprises. At times, The Alchemist’s beat selection is muted, where it might once have been jarring. But that choice shifts the focus: words take front seat. If you’re looking for auditory fireworks, this may seem restrained. But if you’re looking for barbed lyricism and subtle production design, the album works.
In summary, Mercy is a compelling statement from Armand Hammer and The Alchemist. It avoids gimmicks, emphasises space and detail, and reminds us what two decades of craft can yield. It moves with deliberate steps through tension, expansive thought, and quiet reflection. The album asks what mercy means when systems extract value and leave bodies behind. It doesn’t offer solace; it offers witness.
This is one of the best Hip Hop albums of 2025. It invites overtime listening — repeat plays reveal micro-changes, sentence structure evolutions, drum hits that hit differently once you’re attuned. To experience it is to commit to its depths. The album is sharp, the writing elite, the production restrained and thoughtful. Armand Hammer remains among the most vital voices in underground Hip Hop; Mercy keeps them there.
Another great Armand Hammer album.
8.5/10
Also read: The Best Hip Hop Albums Of 2025