4 1/2 stars

(Re-Up/Star Trak/Jive)

"Excuse me if my wealth’s got me full of myself / Cocky’s something that I just can’t help.”

Thus spat Malice four years ago, on single “Grindin’” off Clipse’s first release entitled “Lord Willin’.” Now he and his brother Pusha T are back, and Malice’s tune has changed: “So even when the mumblers talk / I still walk the most humblest walk.”

You heard him—that’s the anthem, get your damn hands down. “Hell Hath No Fury” is finally here, after years of delays and label disputes and slowly leaking most of its tracks to the internet. In the half decade since they last released a full-on LP, the boys from Virginia Beach have seen some psychic scarring.

Blame the drug game. “I’m on touch with the keys, move over Alicia / I force feed ya the metric scale,” cracks Pusha in the first verse of intro “We Got It For Cheap.” And while the braggadocio doesn’t entirely disappear, it gets stirred up with anxiety. The album is laced with regret, and Malice does his fair share of soul searching, admitting, “And I don’t know how them other niggas built / And I don’t know if ever they feel guilt.”

The party started on “Lord Willin’” is over. Clipse smoked up in the back room, and now they’re paranoid. By the album’s last track, “Nightmares,” they’re struggling to fall asleep, cowering beneath lengthening shadows. The hustle’s clearly getting to Malice: “They be thinkin’ nice car, nice crib / I be thinkin’ how long will these niggas let me live?”

Clipse have put on lyrical bulk while selling weight, but the Neptunes have only shed pounds. It seems that the dynamic duo has been trimmed to one—partner-in-rhyme-backing Chad Hugo isn’t credited on any of the album tracks—and sole survivor Pharrell opted for “Paid in Full” style minimalism. It’s a bulimic sound, drenched in bile. Most of the beats are pounded flat into hard, flawless two-bar phrases that loop relentlessly, making “Hell Hath No Fury” even tighter. .

“Hello New World” is probably the best track Pharrell has mixed in a couple of years (apart from “Trill,” this recording’s knives-out club banger). Simple synth string lines surge and disappear, stabbing through the sounds of a protesting bass drum and a cracked cowbell.

Pharrell’s so proud of his beats that he demands and gets a verse on “Mr. Me Too.” They can’t sink the album, but his name-dropping, collar-popping rhymes sure don’t help it. It’s an atypical pulled punch on an otherwise merciless record.

It’s been a banner year for rap. With only December left, 2006 still has yet to see releases from Young Jeezy, Nas, and Ghostface Killa. It’s a congested scene these days, so you can understand Clipse’s apprehension. But “Hell Hath No Fury” proves they don’t have much to worry about.

—Reviewer Jake G. Cohen can be reached at jgcohen@fas.harvard.edu.