There, satisfied? I hope so, back in '81 this was the best London had to offer (ok except maybe that whole 'punk' fad but I'd have trouble stretching my definition of rock here enough to include that). You may look at this hefty trio and wonder how the last record fits in here and it is that very record I want most to talk about. Scenes and reputations and legacies aside there is no question in my mind that these are three revolutionary records, though for very different reasons.
If Squeeze's more well-known, schmaltzy bubblegum singles left a bad tang on your tongue then indulge in the alt-pop feast presented here. Underwhelming at first listen, it is a complex palette of ever-so-subtly twisted ditties with infectious hooks, rock solid arrangements and each with it's own weird edge to it. Mid-record you'll have your mind gradually blown by F-Hole at which point the truly original contour of this album is fully revealed.
From 77-86 Elvis Costello had one of the most impressive runs in rock/pop history. Trust just happens to be sandwiched between Get Happy! and Imperial Bedroom and it is in this trilogy where I believe the scope of his genius is most effortlessly demonstrated. Maintaining the high-energy, to-the-point performance of pop anthems from the former while making a clear progression towards the programmatic moodiness of the latter, Trust is one of his most concisely engaging and rewarding listens and features some seriously underrated classics.
This Heat's Deceit stands out here both in aesthetic and influence but provides a contrast I believe necessary to getting a accurate image of the whole of London's music scene at the time. Recorded in a converted meat freezer (Cold Storage Studios) with the band's own D.I.Y. set-up, Deceit sounds like nothing before or after it. Nor will any album ever come close to capturing such an audible nuclear-arms-race-inspired paranoia as this does. This Heat were onto so many idiomatic innovations with this record it's sort of not surprising this completely fell under the radar; it's hard to know what to make of what's going on here now, let alone 30 years ago. Each song is a totally unsettling and morose atmosphere unto itself, making the whole as accurate a tableau of the proposed dystopia Thratcher's government represented to disillusioned British youth as we'll get.
While Squeeze and Elvis were wrapping their political commentary in love-story allegory and Discharge and Crass wore their anarchism on their armbands, This Heat crafted the most convicted and visionary depiction of an apocalypse that, instead of bringing about desolation, left us some of the most inspired original sounds, sowing seeds for numerous forms of post-punk musical expression to come. 30 years later it's still spine-tingling.
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