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 boring beyond belief. And if they weren't boring, they were just plain bad. This album was a big 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 4/5 or a 5/5. It was innovative for its time, and it's still incredibly unique from the music of today. Though this album just isn't for me. The three guys 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 mostly negative review of the album, I did like the collage of 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. Paper Hats, on the other hand, is actually an alright song. It keeps a small bit of hope for this album going for most of it and is probably the only song on the album that I would say is good. Most of the songs are experimental because the band is trying to be weird, but this one is weird in a good way. Despite this, the next song, Triumph, is just not good. This one, along with another song on this album, can come close to just terrible at points, and I'll get to that one in a minute. S.P.Q.R. is another colorless song, but this time they add more of the post punk style that's listed with the album. Cenotaph is one of the longer ones of these bland avant punk songs, and this time it's with these emotionless vocals, and overall it's an unpleasant listen. It can also become even worse when the band plays this same tune over and over again for the entire song. 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 know this album might be something similar to a "movement" album with its lyrical themes, but this is just a lifeless attempt to make something in that area. It's a shame that these men came together and decided that out of everything they could do, they went and did this with their talent.  

Side two opens with Radio Prague, which is possibly one of (if not) the worst songs I've ever listened to. It's just radio static with someone talking in the background every thirty seconds, and it drags for two minutes. Unlike the last song on this album, I couldn't find any meaning in this song at all. Like I've mentioned before, this is not how you create a "movement" album. You could make the argument that this song was being innovative for putting this in an album, but this is just a joke that they thought they were doing something unique here. Makeshift Swahili had a good start, with similarities to the rising power at the opening of The Dance of Eternity by Dream Theater, but This Heat ends that to start screaming into the microphone along side more annoying and harsh music. Despite all this negative talk I've been brewing, these next two songs show that This Heat can get their stuff together for a couple minutes. Independence has some disjointed but alright lyrics about freedom and rights, though the music is still in that same territory as the rest of the album, with some improvements. 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. 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 poor album. It's similar to how I think I Am the Sea is a good opening to Quadrophenia. Like I said, that doesn't mean I think it's a good song. It's still poor with it only being white noise.  

In conclusion, Deceit did not live up to my expectations. It is full of a painful lack of passion, and it is rudely arrogant in its lyrics. 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 make a bad album in that realm, but they transmitted it to the audience in a poor way. Sometimes I simply couldn't hear what they were singing about because there is no life whatsoever in their vocals. The highest I could give this is a 2/5; the only thing saving it from a 1/5 is because I could be wrong in this review and the album could speak a lot more to other people in different situations than me.