This Heat – Deceit

This Heat's Deceit arrived in 1981 as the trio's second and final studio album, turning the unease of their debut into something far more explicit. Charles Hayward later said the record was about nuclear war and the logic of Mutually Assured Destruction, and that sense of Cold War alarm runs straight through its lyrics, artwork, and sudden musical shocks. It is a post-punk record, but one that pushes well beyond genre routine.

What makes Deceit so gripping is the way its politics are carried by sound rather than slogans alone. The opening "Sleep" sets the tone with a critique of media sedation and consumer comfort, while pieces like "Radio Prague" and "A New Kind of Water" turn tape collage, jagged rhythms, and anxious atmospheres into part of the argument. Contemporary reviews have noted how freely the album pulls together rock, experimental electronics, tape manipulation, and even folk and world-music inflections without ever settling into a safe pattern.

That intensity also marks where This Heat's catalogue ends: after the album, Gareth Williams stepped away, and the band soon dissolved after an attempted continuation with new recruits. That gives Deceit an added charge as both a culmination and a rupture. Superior Viaduct's remastered edition brings back one of the most confrontational and imaginative records to emerge from the post-punk years, still startling in how vividly it connects private dread with public crisis.