Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – “Mercy”

Armand Hammer retain their crowns as abstract hip hop’s poet laureates, once again teaming up with The Alchemist on the captivating Mercy.

Release date: November 7, 2025 | Backwoodz Studioz | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp

Mercy can only come from power. People ask, pray, and beg for it, and sometimes it is given freely. Power differentials that require mercy are a clear sign of injustice, but beggars can’t be choosers. The unjust can beg for mercy, too. There are no clear cut answers besides the power differential; you can count on that. Knowing complexities like this is essential to survival in an unjust world, regardless if you can change the outcome. Sometimes, knowing the end result is its own comfort, and acceptance can ease the mind where mercy is denied to the body. The best any of us can do is accept this.

For Armand Hammer, this acceptance is the balance between hopefulness and cynicism. It isn’t a goal, so much as it is a practice, a way of moving though life accepting the good and bad in a sort of bemused stride. The duo of E L U C I D and billy woods have been sharpening their abstract poetics around this balance for years, crafting bars that sound urgent while dense with metaphors and imagery. Without hesitation, they are one of my favorite hip hop duos, and there isn’t much in the abstract hip hop world that comes close. So, when they named their latest LP Mercy, I am confident that they examined all of the ramifications of the term. Are they asking or granting? Maybe it is simply documenting that they didn’t use their power for more harm than good.

Mercy is Armand Hammer‘s second album with The Alchemist on the beats, who is in the midst of a legendary run as an artist, releasing albums with Larry June & 2 Chainz, Freddie Gibbs, and a collab album with Hit-Boy this year, alone, as we still await albums with Yasiin Bey and Erykah Badu. Their first collab, Haram, is a modern indie-rap highwater mark. Meanwhile, billy woods‘s solo album from earlier this year will undoubtedly rank highly on many critics’ lists (currently in competition for my personal favorite of the year), E L U C I D‘s 2024 album, REVELATOR, did the same, and Armand Hammer‘s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips from 2023 also received universal acclaim. These three artists have been at the peak of their game for a few years, and Mercy is evidence of that.

“Laraaji” ignites the album with a heavy psychedelic beat from Alc while E L U C I D drops bars like, ‘myth of meritocracy/fuck a cock and squeeze/tender headed Black boys sleeping under the gingko tree/dreaming of a cumming uncomfortable.’ There is no mercy here. woods offers little in his verses, as well. ‘Should have killed me when you had the chance/now it’s out your hands,‘ he chimes in, targeting music industry predators matter-of-factly. The smoothness and luxury that Alc displayed on Alfredo 2 and Life Is Beautiful has been forsaken for an anxiety inducing beat that amplifies the rappers’ menace. Soon enough, there is a return to more classic boom bap with jazzy and soulful beats, but Alchemist doesn’t shy away from flexing his more experimental and textured excursions. “Calypso Gene” (featuring Silka & Cleo Reed) features a ridiculously rich and layered beat as Armand Hammer switch into their more sympathetic modes.

The push and pull of touchingly tender moments, abrasiveness, and wry irony are one of the many appeals of Armand Hammer, E L U C I D has a percussive flow, staccato observance with a journalistic eye for detail and concision. billy woods, conversely cross stitches his flow with more verbosity. Both of them are capable of sounding like baritone drill sergeants, but their flows complement each other like bass and drums. In this, as a duo they bring out the best of each other. E L U C I D as a solo artist can get wildly abstract, and woods tends to create greater narrations. Together, each inspires the other to their respective strengths while maintaining their individuality, while other hip hop team ups either merge too closely or just sound like a series of guest verses from the same two MCs for an album. On “Scandinavia” they trade verses, setting each other up for continuations on ideas and themes like tag team wrestlers deciding they are taking control of a match they were supposed to lose, structured, but unpredictable.

Armand Hammer‘s gravity comes from their weight of their lyrics, like how, ‘I can’t tell you the number, I have to dial it,’ get repeated like last words, dripping with hidden meaning that references past lyrics, obscured references, and even Alchemist‘s samples, thematically. It can take multiple listens to grasp any number of interpretations, which reminds me of a revelation I had as a college poet, that poetry is nothing more than obscuring a simple idea, leaving the mystery work to the reader as the shape of words beguile them into contemplation. It gave me a complicated relationship with writing poetry, or at least my own skills with it. I can’t help but love reading and listening to it. Even if it is an exercise in pretention; the puzzle and brain exercise outweighs any folly you could see in the art.

My favorite song on Mercy is “Dogeared” (featuring Kapwani), where E L U C I D and billy woods reflect on their own complicated relationship with writing and rapping. E L U C I D‘s verse is still unfolding in my brain, suffice to say that it is the same kind of complication I have with writing. I cannot escape the practice no matter what frustrations, self-contradictions, or self-criticisms may interrupt the flow, but unlike E L U C I D, I am not rhyming with ‘orange.’ billy woods‘s verse would bring me to my knees if I haven’t only listened to this song sitting down. ‘She finished her drink looked at me inquisitively asking, ‘what’s the role of a poet in times like these?‘ I never answered, but it stuck with me all week,’ he begins, continuing to describe vignettes of his week, plain domestication, relatable, breakfast with the kids, work, untouched novel bedside while he scrolls his phone, until his own perspective crescendos into a reality that supersedes the mundane into a reluctant acceptance of beauty. ‘Do you have an answer yet?’/I’m still grappling,’ the verse finishes. It is a jaw-dropping midpoint on the album.

Armand Hammer aren’t alone in the poetics on Mercy. Besides the vocalists already mentioned, Quelle Chris, Pink Siifu, and Earl Sweatshirt make appearances, lending their own brands of abstract poetry across four tracks. Guest verses tend to follow unwritten rules, like making sure you don’t outshine the lead artist, but since the closest emcee to the Armand Hammer boys is Earl, there isn’t much risk in that. Instead, the guests match Armand Hammer‘s energy and enhance each track, fitting in as naturally as any part of an ecosystem. These are all veteran rappers who never disappoint.

In fact, the prowess and experience of everyone involved on Mercy shines through oceans of banal, pop-centered hip hop. Whether they are nostalgically reflecting or navigating the tumult of daily suffering in a world run by rentier capitalists, oligarchs, and sociopathic politicians, Armand Hammer articulate life’s experiences like rap’s Amiri Baraka and Nikki Giovanni, revolutionary poets with essential perspectives. The Alchemist is in top form, and with Armand Hammer, gets to lean more experimental and left-field. Mercy is yet another triumph from hip hop’s finest minds. Mercy has been granted. Have mercy.