Last year, The Devil—ie Derek Schklar, former manager of Atlanta rappers Pill and Trouble turned producer and multimedia artist—emerged from the shadows with Harbinger, the kind of mixtape you're hard-pressed to consider a mixtape. Rather, it was a painstakingly considered collection of harsh, blood-chilling samples, fatalistic news clips, and hardcore Southern rap, accompanied by a 25-minute film, that gave you only two options: take it in, jaw agape, or run the fuck away. He returns with VIOLENCE, and while there are a few more rap songs that sound like, well, rap songs here—with a handful of verses from DTE's Alley Boy and Pesci, among others—it's no less severe, in sound and in content. It's a challenging listen, less because of its structure than because of the prevailing sense of hatred—of America, of authority, of himself.
Download: The Devil, VIOLENCE