Buys & Receipt: The Legend of ABM by Angry Blackmen
Angry Blackmen
The Legend of ABM
Deathbomb Arc
1/26/24
Angry Blackmen is a Chicago-based noise-centric rap duo currently platformed by the Deathbomb Arc label, which is and has been home to acts and performers as varied and subversive as Death Grips, clipping., JPEGMAFIA, Ed Balloon, Dos Monos, and a host of other idiosyncratic and eccentric musical personalities. News of the duo’s signing to Deathbomb Arc made perfect sense considering the label’s already challenging roster, which itself would encourage enough faith that a group like ABM could write, perform, and produce with little outside intervention. Proof of this is heard in The Legend of ABM, ABM’s first full-length LP.
My copy of the album arrived recently.
Wearing provocation in a manner evocative of NWA (name) and KMD (mascot), Angry Blackmen (members Quentin Branch and Brian Warren) operate in counter-culture subterrania, generating an electrified tangle of sounds unpolished enough to alienate so-called appreciators or sophisticates. “Underground kings,” Branch states in “FUCKOFF,” “We the rap version Iggy Pop.” As assessments go, that’s as accurate and self-aware as it gets: Branch and Warren’s music conveys an embrace of hardcore’s musical economy and sonic hostility within the hip-hop device, their directed rage (“GRIND”) and vulnerability (“Suicidal Tendencies”) set to beats both coarse and appropriately unsettling.
The Legend of ABM, whose title and apocalyptic packaging was inspired by Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, begins with the urgent “Stanley Kubrick,” a track that firmly establishes the group’s M.O. over crackle and siren. Following the hyperventilating fuzz and clangor of “FNA,” the title track has Branch and Warren challenging the minimalism of the instrumental, quick stanzas blasted overtop a crawling series of bass pulses and an echoing and isolated snare overtop an undulating field of noise.
And then “GRIND” is a critic critique, plainly delving into the work put into their craft and noting the diminishing returns: “Working 9-5 / On the grind just to stay alive / Money on my mind / When i rhyme just to get a dime.” Following the directness of “GRIND” in terms of airing the artists’ frustrations, “Suicidal Tendencies” is a two-act catharsis. Featuring Branch rhyming solo, the conveyance of determination via both words and sound, “Suicidal Tendencies” begins as an acknowledgment of overcoming adversity but shifts into a slowed and slurred instrumental as he begins to touch on depression and setbacks. He speaks the line, “Might pull a Kurt Cobain / Join the 27 club.”
While realities and honesty present a bleak outlook for a significant bulk of The Legend Of ABM, I was immediately struck by the last lines of the intense “Dead Men Tell No Lies” (featuring Fatboi Sharif) when Warren raps, “All the voices in your head that been chasin’ you / I believe in the youth; I got faith in you / Put some order in the world for a greater view.”
I recommend picking this one up soon if you’re interested. It looks like copies are still available from Deathbomb Arc, or you can pickup a download from Bandcamp.
Also check out the EPs Talkshit!, Headshots! and Reality! A 12” compilation of Headshots! and Reality! was issued, but is no longer available from Deathbomb Arc.
Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead
