#461 This Heat - Deceit

On some list of 80's albums, and mentioned in the Losing my Edge rant. Double points!

I have heard some atonal, noisy, terrified, terrifying, confrontational shit in my day, but this is something else, sounding truly outside of music, an unmakeable record. This sounds like a record from a post-apocalyptic future; not one made about said future, but truly from it, which is quite a trick.

There barely seems to be a band here at all; the vocals seem to tell fractured sides of various stories of a world gone wrong, alternately cowering Radioheadlike and delivering state anthems in the streets, alternately oppressed and oppressing to oblivion. Rackets clatter, proggy time signatures shudder, sheetmetal guitars and Eastern twang and tinny drums do battle, but the whole thing is also strangely hooky at times, coalescing into moments of stunning beauty, flowerbuds in bootprints, Gang of Four songs played by tincan skeletons. A New Kind of Water sums it up nicely: try to keep from bobbing your head to that bassline, even as guitars chatter and vocals drone.

In the noise, the post-punk seeth, the teasing wielding of melody, you can hear a starting point for bands like Liars and Death from Above 1979. It's as unpleasant as it sounds, but stratlingly singular, plainly must hear 4.5/5

You might like this if: you like abrasive, daring, powerfully strange rock, rendered beyond post-apocalyptic