I cannot believe it’s been 23 years since Relapse released the discography of Ohio’s brutal goregrind band – Hemdale. As it is called once again here, Rad Jackson took all the complete works of the band and released a beautiful reissue. Christ, I remember playing a show with these fellas, and there are a bunch of live fest shots of me with Internal Bleeding wearing a Hemdale shirt onstage – their 1994 Demo shirt. Hell, I was friends with drummer, Craig Rowe, and he threw my name and Internal Bleeding shout out in the liner notes of their split CD with Exhumed. Super cool.

The original reissue contained a whopping 37 songs, all archived from their: Tracks 1-13 from Hemdale / Exhumed split CD. Tracks 14-19 from Hemdale / Exit 13 split CD. Tracks 20-23 from Hemdale / Disgust split 7″.Tracks 24-37 from Hemdale’s self-titled 14-song demo.

This expanded reissue, now released on vinyl for the first time, adds an additional 18 songs to make this a 55-song whopper, coming in at around 80 minutes. The extra songs, for the most part, are live and a few added bonus ditties. All these songs have been remastered, and this is the definitive Rad Jackson release for the fans. The meat and potatoes of their best material was released throughout the 90’s, and it appears the band reactivated back in 2013. That’s when some splits were released. Will we ever get an actual Hemdale full-length? Your guess is as good as mine.

I want to point out something about this style of extreme music. It’s easy to play fast and heavy, but it’s another animal to make it catchy. Hemdale, like Poland’s Squash Bowels, knows how to deliver goregrind with as much catchiness as it is ferocious.

“Delicious Gory Fun” is Holy Shit moments after Holy Shit moments throughout the song. Mike Lehmann – Guitars, Matthew J. Rositano-Vocals, Bass, Craig Rowe -Drums create a racket by opening with a monster whirlwind grind blast with varying gutturals and higher shrieks, when the song title is screeched. This is the first Holy Shit moment. Then that isolated guitar part at the 38-second part, is the second Holy Shit part, when the grind comes in, it’s even faster. At 1.11 this song has remained one of the best goregrind songs ever to be recorded, and my favorite from the band.

The band also had a penchant for macabre humor, as referenced on “Are You Pornophoric?” The intro will have you laughing your ass off. The music is ferocious and so damn heavy. The stop and start moments, then right into the swift grind, are tight. The cymbals crashing will slice and dice you until you are turned into bloody ribbons. This folks is chaos done right!!!

The band showed their love for some of their favorite bands by doing covers such as: “Curse the Gods” (Destruction cover), “Extremely Rotten Flesh” (Grave cover), and “Rise Above” (Napalm Death cover). The band stays true to the original songs’ pacing; however, it adds that signature distorted Hemdale grind heaviness. The songs are well played and, most of all, fun to listen to.

“Rotting Fumes”, from the 1994 demo, starts with a monstrously heavy riff, before this mid-paced heaviness erupts into faster pacing, right before one of my favorite Hemdale songs ever, which is “Vaginal Decay”. I have always loved the catchy blasting on this song, as well as when it gets into that fast gallop midway through. That monster blasting returns with all the gurgling vocal delights and high-pitched shrieks. This song rules plain and simple.

“Fallen Upon Butchery” is one of the songs, not on the original reissue, and this song is heavy and fast, but super short. It’s pretty cool and was from their split with Haemorrhage and Meat Spreader in 2018. The live songs, from a radio show, are excellent, and of course, “Delicious Gory Fun” is on here. You can hear how tight the band was, and killer recording.

This is the Rad Jackson version you want. My buddy Mike, from Horror Pain Gore Death Productions, has also officially licensed this from Relapse, so pay him a visit and buy from him. Brad Boatright has newly remastered all tracks at Audiosiege and with coordination from the original band members. The sound is immense. This crushes from beginning to end.

[Visit the band's website]

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