Audiopile Review: Only a week since we listed the Hiding Places reissue, the 2019 billy woods LP alongside producer Kenny Segal, we’re treated to the newest full length from ELUCID. While Backwoodz has been centered around reissuing the sought after back catalog of the extended Armand Hammer universe, Fat Possum is now served with the duty of getting new material from the duo and their solo projects into the hands of their ever-widening fan base, one that exploded out of the underground in the wake of 2021’s Haram, arguably the best hip-hop album of the 21st century. Though he’s working with a handful of familiar producers that have been swirling in the Backwoodz family for years—Child Actor, August Fanon and DJ Haram all contribute a track here—ELUCID co-produced the lion’s share of the LP, working side by side with Jon Nellen, a producer and percussionist who has largely worked in the indie rock world prior, contributing to albums by Cass McCombs, Nick Hakim and shop faves Olden Yolk. While his full length, 2022’s I Told Bessie, was his most even-tempered album, which leaned heavily on wavier textures and drumless production, Revelator doubles back to his explosive 2016 album Save Yourself. ELUCID’s previously proclaimed love for the hammering industrial-strength rock of Swans is a notable influence here, though his self-admitted pursuit of the “psychedelic” steers Revelator into an otherworldly air that goes well beyond untethered experimentalism. Samples of searing guitar riffs shred atop a bed of digital decay and hazy drums on album opener “CCTV”, setting the pace for the skittering percussion and fuzzed-out bass lines of “The World Is A Dog”, while the dubby percussion, languid guitar lines and warped vocal samples of “Hushpuppies” do indeed achieve the heady psychedelia that ELUCID is striving for. While the production here is awe-inspiring and futuristic, ELUCID’s rhymes will always be the draw. His gruff baritone spits razor-sharp hits of a cold reality, though there are bars of optimism and resistance that keep the album from becoming too bogged down in dystopic metaphor. It’s an incredible balancing act ELUCID pulls off here–an album that’s simultaneously dusted with trippy atmosphere while also being outwardly experimental, finding a sweet spot between third-rail spark of Death Grips and the densely layered lysergic side of early Def Jux. Edition of 700 on “Silver Smoke” coloured vinyl (plus a handful of the Rush Hour “Black Ice” color exclusive) vinyl, ordered direct from the label.

A raw, crackling urgency runs through rapper-producer E L U C I D’s new album REVELATOR like an underground power line. No off ramp from the audio Autobahn that ELUCID has fashioned—a renegade Robert Moses with gold fronts, bulldozing the homes of the powerful and the complicit. REVELATOR brims with the energy of now, with a refusal to look away. Carpe diem in a murder one mask.