Deceit

Deceit is the second and most widely-acclaimed album by This Heat. Its recording began in early 1981 in the band’s Cold Storage studio. The central theme of the album is the impending destruction of the world by nuclear war. Charles Hayward explained in a later interview, “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.” The album was intentionally given a violent, chaotic sound that proved to be an enourmous influence on later experimental bands. As Hayward attests, “We deliberately would make it sound as though the record player was exploding.”