Flatbush Zombies know where they stand. “A lot of niggas is out here trying to be part of hip-hop, and I’m part of it so I’m fucking happy, it’s fine,” Meechy Darko said in a 2015 interview. “ As far as humblebrags go, “It’s fine” really leans into the humility, but there’s a hint of relief in that admission. In an era of dizzying genre shifts Meechy Darko, Erick the Architect Elliott, and Zombie Juice are stiff traditionalists. Removed from rap’s epicenter and comfortable at the margins, on Vacation in Hell, they rap for themselves and no one else. They sound both freed and confined.

Shedding the clunky cinematic husk of their previous album 3001: A Laced Odyssey, Vacation in Hell is streamlined and crisp. In lieu of skits and psychedelia, the Zombies opt for constant movement, passing the mic without ego, accenting each other with choice ad-libs, and avoiding dead air. All this motion produces a sort of newfound clarity. “Crown,” a glitzy collab with pop-rockers Portugal. The Man, punctuates John Gourley’s feathery vocals with fleet verses and builds to Meechy actually singing a beautifully spare bridge: “No one gets out alive/So we live like we already died/No one will ever understand but the sky.” On “U&I,” an ode to brotherhood, Erick Arc Elliott and Zombie Juice tenderly co-recite the chorus and briefly punch in before ceding nearly half the song’s runtime to a gripping Meechy verse. It’s a subtle and touching act of brotherly love.

The greatest generosity seems to have been extended to Erick, whose compositions are ornate and indulgent. Muted key changes are smuggled into percussion-driven slappers like “M. Bison” and “Headstone”; cosmic chords drift in and out of “Crown;” an interpolation of Three 6 Mafia’s “Stay Fly” blips in on “Big Shrimp” solely to accent a punchline; session vocalists and guitarists fill every crag. A$AP Mob producer Hector Delgado (“Misunderstood”), Pro Era stalwart Kirk Knight (“Big Shrimp”), and Macklemore associate Tyler Dopps (“HELL-O”) provide support, but the Architect’s blueprints fit everything together. Again, this is a refinement—Erick has always been the chief designer of the Zombies’ sound—but where 3001: A Laced Odyssey prioritized atmosphere, Vacation in Hell emphasizes configuration. Sounds are arranged with the aim of intensifying moments rather than prolonging them, creating a dynamic soundscape that pulsates and twitches.

These various level-ups make Vacation in Hell competent but not always compelling. Flatbush Zombies have always struggled to make their music as vivid as their logos and merch. Zooted videos like “Thug Waffle” and “Face-Off” and lively early interviews detailing ego-snuffing acid trips primed listeners and critics to label the group as “trippy,” but in reality the music was muddled and meandering, a sludge of halfway effective shock rap and new age trinketry. Lines like “Triple 6 on my coffin, I dance with the devil” (“Bounce”) and “I love brain, Zombie style” (“Bath Salt”) immediately flatline.

This is a constant through line in Flatbush Zombies’ work. From D.R.U.G.S. to Vacation in Hell, the Zombies have had a tendency to explain an image rather than evoke it. Juice is a habitual violator. On “M. Bison” he raps, “I’m so froze, everyday feel like February,” while on “Reel Girls” he raps, “We fucking in the mirror, can’t see it any clearer.” That’s...how mirrors work? Lead single “Headstone” is a total whiff. The lyrics consist almost entirely of canonical song and album titles. It’s presented as homage but it feels like Wikipedia moderators throwing a cypher. In passing, the lushness of the album can mask all this corner cutting, but as the record stretches toward the 75-minute mark, the rigor mortis sets in.

There will never be a shortage of New York rappers penning lifeless stan raps, and if hip-hop wants them around, it’s fine. But Flatbush Zombies have more to offer. Across Vacation in Hell, flashes of lucidity spirit the Zombies outside of their stiffened corpses and evoke a world of camaraderie and brotherhood amid loss and sacrifice. One of the most arresting images on the record is Meechy mourning A$AP Yams on “YouAreMySunshine.” His flow dragging and his signature croak raspy as ever, he turns grief into fantasy: “I know you’re smiling down sharing backwoods with Biggie/Rocking Aaliyah boat or taking a tab with Jimi/Pimping with Sweet Jones, gold grilling with O-D-B.“ No stan could have rapped that; these are the words of a brother.