DECEIT

How this album has managed to be so thoroughly ignored by the community here at ProgArchives is astounding to me. It's the perfect storm of progressive brilliance: Fascinating musicianship, intelligent, beguiling lyrics and a unique sound that "Deceit" can claim to be its own and only its own.

To bottomline it, this album sounds a lot like how the cover looks: Like the music of a grotesque but ultimately friendly patchwork machine that wishes to show you the inner workings of his mind. Indeed, "Deceit" is something of a journey. "Paper Hats" is a fantastic example of this, starting out with a hypnotic groove that alternates vocals between mellow chanting and tortured wails, then dovetails without warning into an avant-jazz freakout before settling back into a segment that could almost be called post-rock, with a bit of a bouncier rhythm than most songs from said genre.

This is not to say that the band does not keep a consistent tone throughout the album, because if anything This Heat is most remarkable at keeping a consistently sinister vibe in their music while keeping things varied enough to make sure the album's 40 minute runtime fly by in a flash. Even though it's easy to see the style they've secured as their own- post punk with jazz affectations and a DIY industrial aesthetic-it's remarkable how the album manages to keep the listener on their toes. Clanking, druggy soundscapes break up the punchier post-punk numbers without ever feeling unwelcome, and as bizarre as it may seem, sandwiched between all this weirdness is a group of songs that wouldn't be unwelcome on nearly any dance floor. The spectacular rhythm section along with the ahead-of-its-time electronic sound manipulation make sure that not only are these songs enjoyable and captivating, but timeless as well. This is an album that could have just as easily come out in 2011 as 1981, which in itself is something of a minor miracle.

This Heat was a remarkably short lived band, but in the half decade they were around they managed to pump enough brilliance into one album to secure their place in music history for all of time. "Deceit" is a necessary album. Besides being at once thoroughly accessible and truly avant-garde, it's an album that synthesizes a hybrid of styles in a way that forms a unique work using complex musicianship and thought provoking ideas, which is the very pinnacle of what every good progressive record. Make no mistake however, this is not merely a "good" progressive record: It is a vital document that every band who wishes to create a unique piece of music must take note of.