Maybe these pages haven’t been paying attention enough to the right corners of rap music, but this past year has been a remarkably quiet one, even at the underground level. Earl, MIKE and SURF GANG had an understated team-up while ELUCID had a good one, too, earlier on with his collab with Swiss hip-hop producer Sebb Bash, I Guess U Had To Be There, but thank whatever god for he and billy woods coming through with a new one from Armand Hammer as a buzz beater with their surprise release, Snakes & Ladders.

This one has the NYC virtuosos of the word back on their own at Backwoodz Studioz doing their own thing after a couple of releases for the bigger indie label Fat Possum. Maybe there’s too much reading between the lines going on over here, but knowing they’re running their own game entirely again shows up in how this album is one of their headiest and darkest trips yet. The duo’s knack for avant horror rap is especially visible even through the dirt on the highlight “Graveside”.

Featuring chronic collaborator in experimental electrician DJ Haram echoing in the ghosts, it hears ELUCID and billy woods impressing verbose bars recounting Black culture’s history of violent suffering since forever through the pair’s ornately woven allegories. “Blunt force trauma, blacks and blues / Broke master’s tools, digging family plots / Rocks and roots cry wide / With a name that ain’t mine / But if I had to choose / Everyone pays, great or small, especially you,” goes ELUCID over a sinister acoustic riff beat designed by Saint Abdullah and Eomac as discombobulated vocal samples crowd the room before woods clears them out decisively. “Reframe it if you like / I’m not going back and forth, but the price is the price / The price was always right ’til I wanted mines / Now we’re playing games, don’t play with your life / Never grab a falling knife.” It’s like they’re staring into evil’s long face, and making it flinch.

Armand Hammer’s Snakes & Ladders is available now on Backwoodz Studioz.