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- Summary: The second full-length release from the collaboration between Armand Hammer and The Alchemist features guest appearances by Kapwani, Pink Siifu, Quelle Chris, Cleo Reed, Silka, and Earl Sweatshirt.
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- Record Label: Rhymesayers
- Genre(s): Rap
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 9
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Mixed: 2 out of 9
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Negative: 0 out of 9
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Nov 6, 2025Their seventh stellar album in a row. .... The Alchemist makes for an inconspicuous partner, creating eerie soundscapes upon which Woods and ELUCID make things a whole lot eerier. And make no mistake, there are some hair-raising cuts here. .... Armand Hammer are equally adept at turning the world suddenly inward, punctuating political madness with moments of real poignance.
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Nov 12, 2025The symbolism of this album, poetic and interconnected, is vital and immense, while the sonic background is (for the most part) disquieting and unnerving. More so than Haram and even the spectral Test Strips, Mercy captures a world that is slowly embracing the unbearable evil of switching channels that morph to dead static.
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Nov 6, 2025Mercy shows woods and Elucid delving more deeply into surrealism, their lyrical flows, brimming with uninhibited leaps, often bordering on stream-of-consciousness. The Alchemist’s approach is lighter, his treatments perhaps more precisely wielded than on Haram. With Mercy, Armand Hammer continue to radicalize and aestheticize rap, pushing language beyond the conventional – all while reflecting the savage world we live in.
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Nov 6, 2025If Haram was the Alchemist’s entry to Armand Hammer’s world, Mercy is a shared vision. There’s a greater understanding of what they can create together, and a willingness to add other sounds into their combined vocabulary.
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Nov 7, 2025Mercy inventively illustrates grim situations and addresses serious, sometimes brutal subject matter in an engaging and intellectually stimulating way.
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Dec 31, 2025There’s a modesty and mundanity to Mercy that distinguishes it from some of their most imposing work: Haram hit hard and loud, a claustrophobic sprawl of baroque menace that reset the temperature of underground rap; Shrines and Paraffin constructed vast symbolic architectures around violence, religion, and empire; even 2023’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips thrived on friction, humor, and jittery movement. Mercy, by contrast, is quieter in affect and smaller in scope.
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Nov 6, 2025Mercy is the kind of album that elicits respect more than it does excitement. Woods and Elucid remain elite craftsmen, and the album functions well as a reminder of their abilities, but it’s a minor entry in a decade-long discography that has stretched rap into singularly unclassifiable territory.