(End of the Month Theme: The 70's) 02/28/12: This Heat - This Heat (1978)

End of the Month Theme: This months ending theme was picked by myself and it is simply any album released in the 1970s. I had this album on the backburner waiting for a reason to listen to it...

02/28/12: This Heat - This Heat (1978)

1. Testcard
2. Horizontal Hold
3. Not Waving
4. Water
5. Twilight Furniture
6. 24 Track Loop
7. Diet of Worms
8. Music LIke Escaping Gas
9. Rainforest
10. The Fall of Saigon
11. Test Card

     This Heat is an experimental rock group from the U.K. they only released 2 full-lengths and this is their debut self-titled album. I guess they never received any major commercial success but have come to be more widely recognized in the music world as a missing link between Progressive rock and genres like post-punk, industrial, post rock, and noise rock. I discovered these guys due to my love of Buck 65 surprisingly. Buck released a mixtape style album a few years back for free that was basically him rapping over various songs from his record collection. That Buck CD opens with a crazy guitar and noise riff that always caught my attention. This heat were credited on the track so I went and downloaded their stuff. The album truly starts with the same flourish of noise from the Buck record on Track 2.
     This Heats genre is hard to pin-point due to how much is happening on this album. They combine a heavy use of tape manipulation and looping with more traditional performances with instruments that run the gamut of heavy distorted punk sounds to just really cool riffs. The songs sometimes are just instrumental rock outs and those give way to eerie soundscapes. There are occasional moments of lyrics on this album that very much made me think of "Thee Silver Mt Zion" so I can have an easy time seeing the post-rock comparison. Overall the album really blew me away. There are so many genres I love represented on this album. The album jumps from rocking to creeping me out in a heart beat. Their tape looping is super well done and when mixed with the rad guitar playing and live drum beats some of their most unique songs are created. Honestly, the ups and downs of this album could be compared to the "Nick Grey and the Random Orchestra" album that we both reviewed. Awesome album, and I hope to check out their other stuff at some point in this project. oksentaminen, you are gonna dig this album for sure, so make sure you put this on your list as a possible crossover. (059)