Florida has historically been a hotbed of death metal and, more recently, the epicentre of SoundCloud rap—two divergent legacies that find their unlikely intersection in Lake Worth native Eric Whitney, a.k.a. Ghostemane. No stranger to corpse paint and other horrifying accoutrements, Ghostemane has been turning trap beats into ticking time bombs since his 2015 debut, infusing eerily atmospheric tracks like “Mercury: Retrograde” and “Nihil” with panicked flows and disturbing, distorted screams. His 2020 release, ANTI-ICON, dials up the industrialised aggression, positioning Ghostemane as heir to Nine Inch Nails’ empire of dirt.