“They say anger is a gift … I’m very gifted,” says Sage Francis in “Pressure Cooker,” the pummeling lead track on his seventh album, Copper Gone. Indeed, the veteran rapper still seems fueled by the seething emotions that won him renown on the slam-poetry circuit in the ‘90s. With admirable honesty, Francis parses a failed relationship with a maturity not present in his earliest recordings. While his customary snarl is still in evidence, he backs up his attitude with greater self-knowledge. Such production notables as Alias, Reanimator, and Buck 65 match his words with potent beats, swirling synths, and prodding guitars. Using both a meat axe and a surgeon’s scalpel, Francis dissects his curdled love life with delicacy (“Grace”) and raw force (“The Place She Feared Most”). Going wider, he blurs the sacred and profane (“Dead Man’s Float”) defies the uncomprehending masses (“ID Thieves”), and plumbs the depths of his own reclusive loneliness (“Make Em Purr”). From the tense simmer of “Vonnegut Busy” to the punchy groove of “Cheat Code,” Francis turns Copper Gone into a survivor’s testimony that extracts wisdom from rage.