Deceit

"From it's word-playful title (Deceit / This Heat-say it aloud and twist your tongue) to the lyrics densely written on the back cover, This Heat's second album from 1981 is much more verbally direct than their largely instrumental 1979 debut. The group had things on their minds and statements they wanted to make. "'The first album was about the Dread, but dread not really understood yet,' says Charles Hayward. 'With the second album, we were starting to understand what made us afraid. The whole of Deceit was about nuclear war. There was a policy of nuclear deterrence forged by our elders and betters called Mutually Assured Destruction. They were so crazy they couldn't see that they'd identified their own policy as M.A.D.' "'Sleep, sleep, sleep / Go to sleep' are the first words you hear on Deceit. For This Heat, mass media, advertising and escapist pop culture tranquilize the population-turning active citizens into passive consumers. 'A life of ease... cocooned in a routine of food,' they chide on the opening track, before stealing the slogan from a TV commercial for fabric softener-'Softness is a thing called comfort.' As with their peers Scritti Politti and The Pop Group, resistance involves not just confrontational lyrics, but sonic strategies: grating textures and jarring rhythms that jolt you into hyper-vigilant alertness. "While Deceit is a postpunk classic, it's also the album where the band's roots in pre-punk progressive underground come through clearest, combining expansive musicianship with DIY primitivism. "Hayward recalls the Deceit sessions as 'very intense-I'd come home and sleep for 20 hours! It was like that for Gareth and Charles, too.' After the release of the album, Williams decided he wanted to take a year off and travel in India. Bullen and Hayward attempted to perform live using new recruits, but the chemistry wasn't there. 'We did a five-week tour of Europe and after that we knew This Heat was going to finish. It's a shame. Because we could have gone on forever.'" -Simon Reynolds