Chicago duo Quentin Branch and Brian Warren had been sharpening their blades since 2017, but The Legend of ABM feels like the moment the sword finally swung. Released on January 26, 2024, this 11-track, debut full-length is less an album than a controlled detonation: industrial hip-hop forged in the crucible of late-capitalist dread, personal trauma, and unapologetic Black rage. Produced entirely by Formants (Derek Allen), the beats are vicious—metallic snares that slice like box cutters, 808s that land like meteor strikes, and dystopian drones that recall Nine Inch Nails and Public Enemy run through a broken distortion pedal. Nothing here is pretty. Everything is necessary.
From the opening triplets of “Stanley Kubrick,” the chemistry between Branch’s barked directness and Warren’s elastic, melodic frenzy is electric. They trade bars like two men who’ve survived the same war and are now comparing scars. “FNA” rides blown-out bass and economic exhaustion (“My tank stay on E from this fucked-up economy”), while “GRIND” flips MF DOOM-style wordplay into a hustler’s manifesto. The emotional core hits hardest on solo cuts: Branch’s “Suicidal Tendencies” stares down alcoholism, a near-fatal car crash, and Kurt Cobain fantasies with terrifying clarity; Warren’s feature on “Amor Propio” (with Nordra) wrestles the daily war of self-love under systemic pressure.
Guest spots amplify the menace—Fatboi Sharif’s ghostly verse on “Dead Men Tell No Lies” turns the track into an end-times dirge, Skech185 roasts industry trauma on “Outsiders,” and Abbie from Mars closes the epic “Magnum Opus” with haunting beauty. The sequencing is deliberate: the album spirals deeper and darker, mirroring the artists’ stated goal of dragging listeners into the rabbit hole of existentialism and survival.
What elevates The Legend of ABM beyond noise-rap shock tactics is its vulnerability. These aren’t just angry Black men; they’re exhausted, reflective, and painfully human, documenting depression, generational wounds, and the quiet heroism of simply waking up in a pre-apocalyptic North America. It’s abrasive, yes—meant to “snap your spine in half,” per their own Bandcamp notes—but the lyricism remains poetic, accessible, and disarmingly honest.
In a year that was overloaded with polished rap product, Angry Blackmen offered something rarer: a record that sounded like the world actually felt at that moment. Brutal, cathartic, and oddly hopeful in its refusal to flinch. If you can survive the volume, The Legend of ABM rewards you with the rarest commodity in music—truth.