Run into a Psychopathic records fan (they may identify themselves as a Juggalo or a Hatchet Fan or a Faygolover) and they'll tell you that
Boondox's 2014 release is a return to the label, but he only left in 2012 and his alternate/off-label career as Turncoat Dirty was such a blip on the radar it might have well been a smudge. Still, word on the Faygo-loving streets was that he and the
ICP crew had some "personal difficulties" that kept him off the Gathering guest list for a spell, but breaking up is worth it if making up feels this good, because
Abaddon is the brutish big daddy's best record to date. Get past the hick-hop hypeman stuff that opens "The Sober Truth" and the track is the kind of slick, hip-hop power ballad that could climb up the charts if he wasn't an
ICP-affiliate, plus it comes with a fascinating story of facing demons, which for
Boondox is the fear that "beast mode" is unattainable without the booze. The man's lyrical game has been stepped up throughout the album, and he often sounds more
Vinnie Paz or
Sick Jacken than the rest of the Psychopathic crew, but the Grand Guignol thrill of his early work is still in effect, and powers many of the highlights. The title track checks off the topics of torture, abortion, cattle slaughter, and Freddie Kruger during just one stanza, while "Kill 'N' Tell" offers the chilling advice "Look deep in her eyes/Contact, before you kill her," and the "Parental Advisory" on the cover could come in a bigger font. The album is willfully full of this disgusting and terrible stuff, but with that Psychopathic carnival sound meeting
Boondox's grim hick-hop with both running at full steam,
Abaddon thrills the derelict and excites the inner-fiend from its boozy beginnings to its ghastly end. ~ David Jeffries