This Heat – Deceit

I've been listening to this album on streaming services for years. Call me ridiculous, but I finally decided to grab one of these off the Discogs market. This album sounds great, punchy, and LOUD. I barely need to crank my volume and this thing is booming. Totally worth it for me considering the price even reissues are going for these days!

Will this ever be rereleased - prices are fucking ridiculous?

Great post punk noise filth yummy would listen again yeah

The whole recent Windmill/post-punk revival scene owes their sound to this album.

Since there are two pressings of this edition: one with the black rectangle (similar to the unofficial 2013 edition if you want to compare), and other with the hand written lyrics - wouldn't it be better to separate the releases in two distinct versions, or at least, to include the backcover variation in the images of this version?

This is the definitive pressing to seek out! This Heat bridges art-punk and experimental electronic music by creating a collage of math-y prog-rock, avant-garde jazz, and textured soundscapes

i love this album. i am at loss for words for how this is fucking great,really. pick it up,ASAP.

This Heat is one of the strangest band to have sprouted from the post-punk scene. Deeply affected by the emergence of the punk/industrial scene, these trained musicians tried to express the 'no future' in their own way. Their experimental approach is reminiscent of the german krautrock bands, but more virulent.

On the cover of 'Deceit', we see a face screaming with a nuclear cloud and the US flag. The back is covered with an orgy of signs referring to war and nuclear armements. The entire album is tinged with a violent phobia of war. It begins with 'Sleep', a soft and ironic piece about the citizens who sleep in their comfort. 'Paper Hats' is a fabulous track. Screams alternate with guitar and a soothing melody. Then it lift off in a punk/industrial fusion and we are transported into an apocalyptic ambiance which eventually phase-out and leaves us in a symphony of off-beat rhythms. 'S.P.Q.R.' is a reference to the Roman Empire with many lyrics in italian. 'Cenograph' is a long piece with a progressive and hypnotic consonance on the theme of history repeating itself. 'Shrink wrap' uses musical elements of 'Sleep' but this time the lyrics are about the liars ; thus making an aesthetical link between the sleepers and the liars. 'Radio Prague' is an ambient track made of noises and it sounds more like their 1st LP (self titled). It moves on with 'Makeshift Swahili', a violent mix of industrial and prog especially twisted and obscure. 'Independence' is an acoustical piece with drums and flute in which we can hear ironic references to the government obligations. It’s hard to tell what 'A new kind of water' is about, but the music is on the side of heavy prog again. The album ends with 'Hi Baku Sho', another ambient track made of noises in which we can hear a fly and harmonica notes, like if we we’re in the presence of a bored soldier on the front.

© Alain Cliche 2016

Mine has no black rectangle on bc
It could be a censor block
Maybe the second run had this black block?

First things first, this is my favourite ever album and I consider it a true masterpiece. Depending on your criteria for that nebulous thing known as “post-punk”, this is also probably the best post-punk album ever made. ‘Deceit’ is the culmination of ‘This Heat’’’s short but hugely impressive, important, influential and dazzling output. The word seminal is often banded about, but for ’This Heat’ it is truly deserved, the influence they had on future artists is undeniable. The music can loosely be characterised as experimental rock, with krautrock and avant-garde influences. Well ahead of their time the music still sounds futuristic and bursting with ideas.

‘This Heat’ formed in the mid-70’s. Always at the far edge of the punk and post-punk movements they produced a stunning self-titled debut album in 1979. After some red-hot peel sessions (later released as ‘Made Available’) and the ‘Health and Efficiency’ EP they released ‘Deceit’ in 1981. At the tail-end of the post-punk movement the album apparently sold poorly, but it was the towering achievement of the era.

Sharing the very real fear of nuclear destruction with those other post-punk titans The Pop Group the album is one of dread, anguish and encroaching insanity. The front-cover image perfectly fits the music, a scream into the face of a mushroom cloud, a collage of human stupidity and destruction.

This Heat were undoubtably a special meeting of musicians that became much more than the sum of their parts. Gareth William’s shot of dilettantism combined with the jazz drum skills of Charles Hayward and Charles Bullen’s brilliant guitar work allowed ideas to flourish. Extensive time spent experimenting in their own studio allowed them to develop a unique sound. On opener ‘Sleep’ the comforts of the modern world are promised, sung with a soothing melody to lull you into a dream state. On the following track ‘Paper Hats’ the dream turns to a nightmare. The lyrics are screamed from a distance, a terrifying fall down a rabbit hole. An extended krauty outro drags you into the track ‘Triumph’, full of prominent kazoos, odd percussion, synthy organ, beeps and drum crashes. Another terrific example of the vocal switching and harmonising of the band ends a very odd track. Following this comes probably the most traditionally rockist song on the LP, ’S.P.Q.R’. The vocals repeat ‘We are all Romans’ and talk about the universal, unchanging nature of society and the human condition. Complementing this the next song ‘Cenotaph’ takes this view to war and the futility and waste of never-ending conflict. The delivery is devastating, all the member’s vocals sounding drained, grey and weighed down. The music is haunting, powerful and ends in a dirge. It’s nihilistic, the album is getting heavy.

On the flip side the paranoia and mental anguish on ‘Shrink Wrap’ is overpowering, endlessly repeating “shrink-wrap, you lie, you lie, you lie” whilst voices shout, argue, mumble and odd noises lead you into insanity. Then suddenly it stops. This is the point of the total breakdown and now you are in the deep-end of ‘Radio Prague’, a numbers-stations-esque quiet freak-out, random clipped voices and tv sound-clips are degraded, chewed up, all with an incessant low electronic beat and random object percussion. The unsettling effect is indescribable. But then the anger wells up, the deep synth and strings start and lead straight into ‘Makeshift Swahili’, the band find their voices and Charles Hayward aggressively barks the lyrics. A confusing, disconcerting mixture of political anger, accusations and absurdity, the song ends with him screaming “Rhubarb, rhubarb” dementedly into the void. The only response to looming total destruction in an already twisted world is the ludicrous. Musically the drums are sharp, the guitar spidery and angular and the bass comes in brilliantly, switching the flow of the track. Surely one of the greatest songs ever, the transition to the live recorded part of this song is one of the most thrilling parts of the album. The abrupt change in fidelity is genius, another sonic curveball. It’s not just used for the sake of it though, the live recording sounds even more out-there, unhinged and is the perfect vehicle for the lyrics. We fall back into the original synth drone and fade away, exhausted.

The next track ‘Independence’ has the lyrics taken from the United States Declaration of Independence. The track is gentler, with a brilliant bassline, but the declaration is delivered in a dead-pan style that leads you to feel they are mocking the words. The next track ‘A New Kind Of Water’ confirms this view. It is the end of the world, the achievements of human civilisation are laid out and dismissed. Again the nihilism is overwhelming, the world is crashing down around them. The baseline is utterly amazing, the drumming stunning and the guitar is used brilliantly. The track builds slowly and ominously, drops out to just the guitar and then goes into the thrilling final section, a perfect marriage of amazing lyrics delivered powerfully with perfect music.

And then the track suddenly stops and we are in the postscript of ‘Suffer Bomb Disease’. A low drone starts and odd noises pop up, what sounds like deformed screams are heard. A church bell rings in the distance and a moan is cut-off halfway through as the track abruptly ends. This is the sound after a nuclear bomb, we are left in a place of deep fear and painful moans, if we are lucky (or unlucky) enough to survive.

The genius of ‘Deceit’ has roots in the general appeal of post-punk - it is the tension between the song craft and avant-garde influences that defines it’s greatness. It is easy to produce an ambient album or a drone or a noise record. It’s much harder to take influences such as these and incorporate them successfully into an essentially rock-based environment. ‘This Heat’ manage to do that with aplomb on ‘Deceit’. Many of the songs have hooks and strong melodies and yet it still manages to be a strange journey that continues to reward listen after listen. The detail in the soundscapes is astonishing, the production superb and the ideas behind it are vibrant and still relevant today. It is a masterpiece and deserves pride of place in any collection.