The Dehumanizers - "Chemical Death" From the Album End of Time

Wiseass skatecore from the Seattle that existed before Green River had even broken up.

My favorite part, of course, is the breakdown, where they read the ingredients from the back of a bag of Doritos to illustrate the pestilence all of us have placed upon Mother Earth.

Even though they don't pronounce "hydrogenated" correctly, it's still a mosh part where you can give the band credit for being silly and clever, earnest and ironic all at once, an indecipherable postmodern moment in a genre that rarely features them.

I remember I first heard the song on this Senseless Death compilation my metalhead buddy Alan had unearthed somewhere. Most of it was Thrash of the sort that was played (and we listened to) in the late '80's. I think he'd bought it for the Sacred Denial tracks. But the Dehumanizers and one other band on the comp, AMQA, won us over as they played a lighter, faster, funnier crossover than Sacred Denial or Cancerous Growth or any of the other thrash bands therein.

AMQA were pretty great themselves, Big Fat Muffins who loved to explode, but this Chemical Death thing . . . my goodness, it absolutely shreds.

So I went out and hunted down the album, and while The Dehumanizers don't sustain the energy of "Chemical Death" throughout the entire LP, there are several songs on End of Time just as good, like "Planet of the Apes," and "Grandma I'm A Drug Fiend." The last, at the very least, should be played by any who might be unconvinced that the irony I cite in "Chemical Death" was intentional.

I'd probably prefer it if the Dehumanizers HADN'T reunited last year and I'd probably prefer it if the reunited band didn't have a MySpace page that would "like to recognize the tragic deaths of both Cliff Burton and Dimebag Darrell."

I'd probably like it better if all I had was this record I'd searched out that no-one knew about, this relic of pre-Grunge Seattle.

But what the fuck, right?


Dehumanizers - End of Time - 5 - Chemical Death.mp3

This file was removed March 31, 2009. If you're still way interested in coming up with a copy of this--and really can't figure out where you might get one--drop me an email and I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out for you.

File under: Sk8core