Review: Surprisingly, long-serving underground rap duo Armand Hammer (AKA ELUCID and Billy Woods) have never recorded an album under the guidance of a single producer. Haram, then, is a unique item in their discography, produced as it is by a lone beat-maker, sometime Mobb Deep, Dilated Peoples and Ghostface Killah collaborator the Alchemist. Musically the album is alternately pin-sharp and drowsy, with sparkling synths, obscure instrumental samples and warming tones riding loose, jazzy and largely laidback hip-hop beats. As you'd expect, ELUCID and Billy Woods are in fine form throughout, spitting rhymes that their label accurate describes as a mixture of "the profane and the pure".
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