Halfway through The Legend of ABM, the new album from Chicago industrial rap duo Angry Blackmen, Quentin Branch stares down Azrael, the Angel of Death. He opens “Dead Men Tell No Lies” by growling, “Death is all around me, smell the scent in my nostrils/Grim Reaper glaring in my eyes looking hostile,” his gravelly voice cutting against a sandpapery bassline. On every song, Branch and bandmate Brian Warren confront what feels like their imminent destruction. The ambient stress of being alive in America, especially for Black men, stems from recognizing that potential harm is omnipresent: Cops have bloodshot eyes and itchy trigger fingers, drugs and alcohol course through veins and cloud vision, the weight of a rigged economy keeps us all under the thumb of the invisible hand. Angry Blackmen’s music is the sound of the unfolding apocalypse rendered in stunning 4K.
Issued by stalwart Philadelphia experimental label Deathbomb Arc, The Legend of ABM shares its chaotic DNA with labelmates like clipping. and JPEGMAFIA. Derek Allen, who records dark, glitchy electronic music under the alias Formants, produced the record in its entirety, giving the songs a distorted, metallic palette. Snares sound like blades being sharpened, field recordings become smoldering drones, and kick drums hit like meteors cratering the earth. It’s brutal and harsh but always controlled. Warren and Branch first linked with Allen in 2020 after meeting at a basement show in Elmwood Park, Illinois. Allen worked with ABM on their 2020 album HEADSHOTS! and 2021 EP REALITY!, but The Legend of ABM is a full realization of their collaborative potential. Allen’s production is stripped of melody in favor of a constant oppressive atmosphere, inspiring Branch and Warren to lean further into the horrors of life under late capitalism.
There’s a blunt edge to their writing, as if the lyrics were scratched into stone with a Bowie knife. They’re both unflinchingly frank, detailing their demons with disarming honesty. Self-harm and destructive behavior are constant motifs. On Branch’s solo cut, “Suicidal Tendencies,” he describes the contours of a slow-moving mental breakdown, a collapse fueled by severe alcoholism, bleak living conditions, and an unshakeable feeling that he wouldn’t make it past 27. He’s on the other side of it, having gotten sober and moved to New Mexico, but a car crash in Santa Fe that nearly killed him and his girlfriend still repeats in his mind. Warren’s solo turn on “Amor Propio” (Spanish for “self-esteem”) is equally harrowing, a journey through the day-to-day frustrations snowballing since he was a child. It culminates with a withering admission: “Kinda hard to love myself/All these years in my skin.”
ABM work best when Branch and Warren play off each other; they weave with easy and undeniable chemistry, delighting in the challenge of one-upping the last verse. Tracks like “Stanley Kubrick” radiate competitive intensity; both rappers tumble through breathless triplet cadences, unbothered by quick tempos or blistering noise. On “Sabotage,” Warren speeds across the squelching synths and jagged claps, rapping about generational trauma with a Pharoahe Monch-like elasticity. Branch follows with a more spacious flow, finding the amorphous pockets that made Young Dolph so captivating.
Though The Legend of ABM is in conversation with noise rap, it feels more immediately accessible than a lot of the prickly subgenre’s output can be. Dälek records are often stately, almost academic, and clipping.’s work sometimes dips into brooding theater-kid territory. Angry Blackmen and Formants’ visceral but upfront approach owes more to the boom of 2010s Chicago drill and the wild-eyed frenzy of late aughts Lil Wayne than the punishing racket of Yellow Swans or Masonna. ABM’s brand of blown-out beats seems less like an aesthetic choice and more like a natural depiction of how it feels to survive in 2024. The cacophony never ceases and the mind always races, but there must be some way to exist within the din.
