This Heat by This Heat
Style: Experimental Rock, Noise
Release: 1979
Length: 41 min.
Round: Experimental Rock
I started this album to prepare for This Heat's Decieit. I'm writing this as I go along, as usual.
Upon the first beep, I understood the album would be unpredictable. I think Testcard was pretty pointless as a track, but it did help set the standard for the album in a small way. The first real track, "Horizontal Hold," is the real intro. It's six minutes of unpredictable changes in time signatures and a buttload of noise-shattering, brain breaking rhythm. And I'm not saying this is bad. In fact, if that's what the album does while remaining catchy throughout, it's unique enough. I'm not really a fan of "Not Waving," however. It felt like a pointless noise for nearly 3 minutes. Than the singing began, and I was less impressed. In fact, it was actually pretty horrible. "Water" had a little bit of grip. But overall it was too short to really go anywhere. For three minutes, irt felt like an intro. So I can imagine the next song would pick it up. "Twilight Furniture" gave me what I hoped for. A little grip, a little emotion. At this point, I realized the irony of the album. Despite going so slow, the songs feel a lot shorter than they are. two minutes in, and I felt that I had barely scraped off the first minute. And by the end, this 5-minu8te track felt like 3. Track 6: "24 Track Loop." With a track title like that, I was afraid I'd be hearing the same tune in loop over and over again. However, that wasn't what the track was like at all. It had an electronic feel akin to Kraftwerk. It's actually one of the best tracks due to its experimentation and its high complexity. It gets more and more exciting throughout.
Before I continue, would you eat this?
Halfway through, I start "Diet of Wormjs." I'm so glad this album feels a lot shorter than it is, because it was mostly just a bunch of dull, headache inducing screeches on a low volume but high pitch. I can see a bunch of dogs surrounding me wondering where the sound comes from. Yeah, the music's like a dog whistle. And then came "Music Like Escaping Gas." I think to myself I'm about to put myself through hell. It begins with the screeching noise from the last track, but put to a low and somewehat intense vibration and used in a creative way. Like, remember that weird high-pitched noise from the Alien trailer? Imagine this noise but doing that. Eventually, it gets a little more inventive and a simple, but effective guitar solo begins. Obviously, this was one of the better tracks. The cough halfway through was pointless, however. It reminded me a little of Kid A. The singing, what with the ghostly backing vocals and the deep lead vocals, were very effective towards the tension. I didn't know gas sounded so good. Next was "Rainforest," which was loud and obnoxious in comparison. The cymbals had drowned out the vast majority of instruments and I couldn't hear a thing. It didn't even slow down until halfway through. "The Fall of Saigon" was a more inventive and original track. It had an excellent structure, clever instrumentals, and a very intense aura. Then the singing began. And I was more impressed. Such a dark song. Finally, the last ttrack, also named "Testcard," started. FOPUR MINUTES OF THAT REDUNDANT BEEPING? Aye.
Well, I've gotta say the songs that were good were really good, and the songs that weren't were unnecessary. Personally, I think this should have been released as a shorter EP, or at least shown more creativity for some songs.
75/100. I've heard more than half of the experimental list. This was the worst. I'll be voting this off along with three others. Don't know what they'll be.