Genre: Rhythmic Industrial/ Rhythmic Noise

Track Listing:

01 Panoptic
02 Embolism
03 One Inch Punch
04 Oez
05 23>0<18
06 Higher Beings Command
07 Kamikaze
08 S=K Ln Omega
09 No Human Contact



“The Strongest Weapon ” is Indianhead’s second release generally and the first one issued on a label named Serial and claiming the rebirth of the label in 2005 (as the first album released by Serial saw the world in 1999).

Indianhead is a band coming from the United Kingdom. It was initially formed in 1990 from two dissolved bands aiming playing live and taking minimalist approach. They walked a difficult path of relationships with different labels concerning the EPs they had managed to record, but finally they found a label, Headstone Records, that issued their first official release, The Gun Speaks, in 1997 (then reissued in 2007). Recording of the next album this review is dedicated to, The Strongest Weapon, was accompanied with many issues in band members’ lives, but finally it was released in 2003. The interesting this about Indianhead’s album is that the cover artworks follow a concept line, from The Gun Speaks 1st edition to The Gun Speaks 2nd edition, showing different objects – a gun, a camera (?), something that was difficult to recognise.

The sound on this album is called different names - Power Electronics, Noise, Industrial, Experimental..I would call it a mix between Rhythmic Noise and Power Electronics.The tracks differ from each other and can be divided in two types – the ones where the rhythm prevails and all the means of expression used in the track are dedicated to create a noisy, abrasive structure of the track and the ones where the non-rhythmic background plays a more vital role,where the rhythm is rather repetitive and slightly changes throughout the tracks. However, tracks of either kind most offen consist of bott parts. Multidimensional, viscous, heavy rhythms make you somewhat float or slide if you prefer. The “vocals” or narratives are a special part of the record – sometimes they carry a message and sometimes they are another instrument to create rhythmic patterns as in the track One Inch Punch (see the end of the track especially) and OEZ, where “Everyone” being shout and distorted adds a great portion of dramatic effect to the track.

Certainly you won’t find dancefloor hits around this album, I guess it just was not composed to be so. People just did what they enjoyed to do and they got the result they became satisfied with. As for me, when it comes to noisy sound, I enjoy this kind of heavy, viscous music with deep echoing rhythms which from time to time become the main leading part of the tracks, with little melodism and rather experimental approach to the sound (voice and guitar sound usage as an example).