Review: Gonemage - Handheld Demise - The Progressive Subway

Style: Chiptune, Avant-Garde Black Metal, Glitch, Emo (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Algorithm, Master Boot Record
Review by: Andy
Country: United States-Texas
Release date: 30 September, 2022

The clock chimes three o’clock for Christopher; he works the night shifts after all. I stand over his desk and tell him I have the perfect album for him, a synthesized bastard child of chiptune and avant-garde black metal. Christopher screams. He has no idea what chiptune is or that it’s a genre of music, but he knows that if I recommend a genre amalgamated with the blackened machinations of my soul to him, it’s something he should be terrified of. Entering into spooky month, our office has had seemingly endless discussions of horror movies. Nobody mentioned Frankenstein–perhaps it’s too obvious a pick–but Gonemage’s newest entry into the black metal canon, Handheld Demise, is a verifiable, stitched-together monster of video games and black metal. I choose the scariest album out there for Christopher, and I laugh the classic maniacal laughter of a deranged, B-list horror movie villain. That is my god-appointed position in our office.

The first couple tracks firmly establish that Handheld Demise consists of weird, glittery synths like Wreche colliding with a blackened something underneath vocoders and additional sound effects. To be fair, chiptune and video games are not new to metal with acts like The Algorithm and Master Boot Record gaining some traction, but the completely overwhelming sonic attack that the black metal aspect adds really seals the deal for being an album out of Christopher’s nightmares (and daytimes when I’m around). The steady pulsation of the rhythm sections really push the first couple tracks forward, and the later tracks like the finale “From Walls to Woods” obliterate the unprepared listener with awesome moments of off-the-wall insanity.

With chiptune, black metal, and excessive layering of various unholy sound effects stitched together into a monster that would make Frankenstein wince, this album is a terrifyingly dense affair. Most noticeable on the list of problems on Handheld Demis is that the album takes only a couple minutes to make the listener feel completely smothered in synths, making the next forty minutes (thank god it’s only forty-three minutes) drag on. The brickwalled to hell production really does not do the rich variety of sounds any favors. The synapses of a normal brain can only process so much in any given moment, so Handheld Demise will suffocate even brave listeners. All the unconventional blast beats and melodies drown each other out until the entire album is unlistenable for long periods of time.

Next up on the laundry list of problems I have with listening to Gonemage is the pretty rough pacing. I will be the first to admit that the black metal and chiptune combo works well for the band, even at the suffocating limits, but when the band implements punkier tones as in “Stairwell of Gore and the Faceless Apparition” or the trite emo of “Slowly I Watch the Shockwave,” even I beg for the whole thing to be over. I can’t imagine what poor Christopher would have done if I actually tortured him with this–I did give him Haven of Echoes at least. Gonemage, for the entire middle portion of the album, experiments a lot but in the wrong direction; I feel more could have been done with the relative uniqueness of their main genre combo, but the band leaves it unexplored in favor of misguided emo. Part of this is certainly personal preference, but the weak autotune that is prevalent and the change in pace detract from the album’s overall flow.

Finally, Gonemage’s lyrics are both odd and fun, featuring parts of an esoteric lore based on video games from what I can tell. I do understand them as part of a complicated multiple-album-spanning story, but I can’t imagine spending the requisite time listening to more Gonemage music to piece the convoluted story together. I would be disappointed, though, if the weird avant-garde video game metal didn’t have a convoluted concept, so I can’t hold the confusing story against them: and hey, if against all odds they do have some super fans, then a whole Gonemage universe is out in the abyss to be explored. But in the end, even I can’t tolerate much more Gonemage in my life. Making ears bleed is a horror movie in itself, even without giving this album to my noble, British friend who will live to see another day (or until my next recommendation). Muwahahaha.

Recommended tracks: The Suffering and Endurance; Hallways Endlessly Resetting, Corpse Slide Wetting; From Walls to Woods
You may also like: Luminous Vault, Wreche
Final verdict: 3/10