“Seemingly endless sonic flame-throwers of phased white noise streak across your inner landscape, as stupidly loud and overly-backlit lead guitar emissions perpetrated by a perpetually be-shaded longhair pummel the similarly be-shaded but barely adequate musical backing that sags and creaks under the wattage. Occasionally, lead vocals of a singular variety are provided by said be-shaded mad axeman, whose paranoid personality ensures all songs are delivered in a voice of querulous subterranean gargling from beyond the valley of Alan Vega… My giddy aunt, what’s this, then, a MEATY BEATY BIG & BOUNCY from the Underworld? A rough guide to Japrock’s most intuitive non-career movers? Has the world’s most revolutionary rock’n’roll band released a compilation album of leader Mizutani’s most frequently requested tracks due to overwhelming popular demand? Ja, mein hairies, this certainly seems to be the case. For, with the arrival of this superb FLIGHTLESS BIRD compilation, obsessive fans of Les Rallizes Denudés (are there any other kinds?) finally have a proper ‘early career’ overview of Mizutani & Co. at their fingertips, a 70-minute-long super distillation of this most contrary of band’s choicest musical moves executed between 1967-82, a superb sounding and partly/mostly chronological trawl through the freaked out and perpetually-yelping mindscape of singer and avant-avalanche guitarmonger Mizutani, and his sinister-yet-interchangeable pool of black clad world-to-rights acolytes. Indeed, except for the somewhat shocking omission of Mizutani’s time-honoured set-closer ‘The Last One’, it’s all right here on this CD in truly gargantuan proportions, as FLIGHTLESS BIRD unloads on both fans and champions of Rallizes a very enormous something with which to petition those seething multitudes of Doubting Thomases among their friends and relatives, whom they will have undoubtedly regaled with blasts of shrieking Mizutani feedback – for the past decade or so – via dodgy vinyl bootlegs, third or fourth generation C90 cassette copies, or expensive handmade CD-Rs….” (continued)