This Heat, the record, was a landmark release. It tore up the book and laid new rules for band composition and performance. The music was without precedent; the musicians uncompromising; the recordings hammeringly intense and the sound deep, radical, and rich. This was music stripped back to the bone but never simplified. And over time it has also proved itself prescient; there are musical innovations here that anticipate genres that would take another 15 years to reappear.