| Deceit | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Front cover of the 2006 remastered version. |
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| Studio album by This Heat | ||||
| Released | 1981 | |||
| Recorded | 1981 at Cold Storage, Zipper Mobile, Mekon, Berry St, Vineyard, Surrey Sound, Nivelles | |||
| Genre | Post-punk, experimental rock | |||
| Length | 40:45 | |||
| Label | Rough Trade | |||
| Producer | This Heat, David Cunningham | |||
| This Heat chronology | ||||
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| Additional cover art | ||||
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The cover art (as shown in the 1991 CD booklet) reflected This Heat's anxiety about nuclear war.
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Dusted | [2] |
| Pitchfork Media | (9.0/10) [3] |
Deceit is the second album by This Heat. Deceit is considered by many as a classic of the post-punk era and was ranked by Pitchfork Media as the 20th greatest album of the 1980s. The Trouser Press Record Guide called the album "austere, brilliant and indescribable."[4]
In a 1991 interview, Charles Hayward explained that the threat of nuclear warfare motivated the band and provided the album with an underlying theme: "The whole speak, 'Little Boy', 'Big Boy' [sic], calling missiles cute little names. The whole period was mad! We had a firm belief that we were going to die and the record was made on those terms.… The whole thing was designed to express this sort of fear, angst, which the group was all about really."[5] The album's subject matter also deals with war and imperialism.[6] The cover art reflects these concerns and includes a photomontage of images such as mushroom clouds, thematic maps depicting nuclear arsenals, and photographs of Ronald Reagan, Leonid Brezhnev, and Nikita Khrushchev.
As with other This Heat recordings, much of the album was recorded at Cold Storage, a disused refrigerated storeroom at a former meat pie factory in Acre Lane, Brixton, England.[7] The music included new improvisations, along with songs the band had been playing during live performances (portions of these songs were culled from actual concert recordings).[5][7] As Hayward describes, "some of the album was really plush sounding, some dim and pokey. Sometimes it would sound like the machinery was breaking up. We deliberately would make it sound as though the record player was exploding."[5][8]
During the 1990s, intermittent availability made Deceit a rarity and a collector's item among fans. In 2006, This is (a Recommended Records imprint) released a remastered version of Deceit as part of the 6-CD Out of Cold Storage box set. This is also released the album as a separately available CD.
All songs written and composed by This Heat [9].
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Sleep" | 2:13 |
| 2. | "Paper Hats" | 5:57 |
| 3. | "Triumph" | 2:55 |
| 4. | "S.P.Q.R." | 3:26 |
| 5. | "Cenotaph" | 4:35 |
| 6. | "Shrink Wrap" | 1:40 |
| 7. | "Radio Prague" | 2:21 |
| 8. | "Makeshift Swahili" | 4:04 |
| 9. | "Independence" | 3:39 |
| 10. | "A New Kind of Water" | 4:57 |
| 11. | "Hi Baku Sho" (Suffer Bomb Disease)" | 4:03 |