DECEIT

This Heat was an experimental post-punk band from the late 70s and early 80s. They received critical acclaim with their 1981 album Deceit, and so I decided to check them out to see if they really were that good. And they were quite the unique experience for me. They did bore me at times, but there were interesting parts here and there. Overall, this album was a disappointment compared to what other people thought about it and the ratings this album was getting. Despite this, I can still see how and why people might give this a 4/5 or a 5/5. It was innovative for its time (although many artists before them had experimented in a similar fashion), and it's still incredibly unique from the music of today. They were (from what I can tell) one of the earliest artists to combine experimental sound collages with the post-punk of the eighties. The three men that played on this album were all technically multi-instrumentalists, with each of them playing around four instruments according to the personnel of the album. I must admit, though, despite this review being mostly mixed, I did like the album cover with its similarity to the cover of Zarathustra by Museo Rosenbach. 

The album starts with the song Sleep, a boring, almost experimental pop song that wasn't a great introduction for me. It just doesn't have anything truly grabbing or interesting and is just a set of loops and awkward vocals that seem like a last-minute thing that was put together. Paper Hats, on the other hand, is actually a good song. It keeps a small bit of hope for this album. It blends an interesting and complex structure into unexpected changes and wacky instrumentations that come off in a very intense and creative manner. Most of the songs follow this similar formula of experimenting in a rock sense, and I can tell it's because the band is trying to be weird, but this one feels incredibly thought out. Despite this, the next song, Triumph, is just not as good. It's a set of more strange noises and studio experimentation that doesn't make much sense and is just a little too structured for me to enjoy its unconventional nature but too dissonant for me to really care for it. This one, along with another song on this album, can sound weird in a bad way, and I'll get to that one in a minute. S.P.Q.R. is the fastest song with plenty of that punk fashion listed with the album. It can feel colorless, and the members just seem generally uninterested in the song when playing it. Cenotaph is one of the longer ones of these more punk-focused songs, and it sort of sounds like a mix of Paper Hats and S.P.Q.R., with a repetitive beat and overall uncanny but strangely catchy guitar part making it memorable. The last song on side one is simply called Shrink Wrap, and it starts with the beginning of sleep before going into this sound that sounds more like a broken record player spinning the disc backwards rather than an actual song. I'm not sure why, but I have a fascination with this collage of different effects, voices, and noises that keeps it fresh while still being the same song. 

Side two opens with Radio Prague, which serves as a darker and more subtle twist on the avant-garde approach of the album, being ambient noises and voices with the sound of manic knocking invoking a new feeling in me. Makeshift Swahili had a good start, with similarities to the rising power, but This Heat brings an unexpected turn that sounds annoying, and combined with the harsh music, it just doesn't sound nice, and by this point I think it can sound like the band's head is getting too big. Independence has some disjointed but alright lyrics about freedom and rights, though the music is still in that same territory of a far-reaching form of punk, just like the rest of the album, with some improvements (such as less conventional instrumentation and a serious yet peaceful mood). And then the next song, A New Kind of Water, is the second-best song on the album, in my opinion. It has a strong sense of rhythm, with a nice descending melody, and actual emotion sprinkled into it (which up until this point hasn't been shown in the album). The next song on the album is called Hi Baku Shyo, which is entirely ambient. It is simply noise accompanied by little to no bursts of radio chat or a keyboard piece. Even though this basically isn't even a song, I felt that it fit in as a good ending to a generally good album. 

In conclusion, Deceit did not live up to my expectations but had a good fight. It is full of interesting and bland music and lyrics and even sounds arrogant at some points when things get bad. While I could sense something similar to a conceptual idea within the music and most of the songs, I felt it was overhyped and is really just another protest album among the many albums and songs that have done the same thing over the decades. The only difference is that not only did This Heat blend genres in a new way, but they transmitted it in such a strange (and fascinating) way. This is either a strong 3/5 or an average 3.25/5. Maybe even a 3.5/5, because overall this is an important album in the avant-prog genre and is worth checking out for anyone wanting to get into the genre.

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