There’s probably a lot to be said about Les Rallizes Dénudés, it’s just sad that most of it can’t be found anywhere.

Les Rallizes Dénudés is a japanese band, despite it’s name, that formed back in 1968 and that the album we’ll be talking about today, “Heavier Than a Death in the Family”, is their most famous release, but it’s also a bootleg of live shows that is, nonetheless, available in Spotify. This is gonna be one of those days.

“Heavier Than a Death in the Family” is a bootleg (i.e. unofficial/unauthorized release) compilation from live shows from 1973 until 1977, released in 2002. All the tracks here are incredibly noisy and seem a bit ahead of their time.

This is basically a heavy shoegaze album more than a decade before My Bloody Valentine’s “Isn’t Anything” was even released. This reminds me a lot of one my favourite current bands, A Place To Bury Strangers.

Every track is loud and fuzzy, covering you in cloud of static that is even amped by it’s very lo-fi recording.

Sadly I couldn’t get fully into this album, mostly because I think the vocals are quite bad. It’s strange, because I can see that they’re similar to shoegaze vocals, but the way the vocals are distorted just puts me off. The last track, “Ice Fire”, does have more tolerable vocals and maybe because of that, it’s my favourite one. The instrumentals though are great, chaotic, loud and powerful. It’s definitely one to check out if you like shoegaze and want to something similar but released before the genre officially emerged.