Armand Hammer, Alchemist – Haram

Haram is a passionate collaboration between the effervescent rap duo Armand Hammer and living legend The Alchemist. For the first time, ELUCID and Billy Woods have made an album with a single producer and the result is extraordinary. With their inimitable penchant for stirring imagery and incisive storytelling, the two rappers dive into an ocean of Alchemist's creation: warmly inviting on the surface, black and bone-crushingly cold in the depths. Haram is a collection of the profane and the pure; a reminder that the forbidden is also sacred.

The artists are accompanied on this journey by their friends and fellow travelers. KAYANA's golden voice ups the wattage on "Black Sunlight," while Fielded's sultry alto is chopped and screwed on "Aubergine." Earl Sweatshirt makes a sun-soaked appearance, while Curly Castro and Amani mingle like ice and salt on Brooklyn sidewalks and Quelle Chris, as always, finds a pocket all his own. Still, there's a natural rapport that belies the nature of the project from New York to Los Angeles and back, allowing Haram to be more than the sum of its parts, however impressive those parts may be. This isn't just the most haunting contemporary voice in the genre paired with arguably the best producer. It's like buying a beautiful house, only to discover a staircase winding upwards and into darkness behind a heavy bookshelf.