The Rising Storm.

One of the books that I tore through as a teenager was Richie Unterberger's Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll. I learned about oodles of obscure and wonderful artists from this book. It pretty much established me as a record geek. It's worth getting.

Anyway, the book has a chapter dedicated to sixties garage rock. One of the groups that Unterberger profiles is Andover, Massachusetts' the Rising Storm. Composed of six prep school students, the band recorded and pressed an album just before their graduation. Recorded in a week for $1000, the record largely consists (typically) of covers.

Calm Before, however, also contains a few original compositions which are truly sublime. One of these cuts, "Frozen Laughter," was included on the CD that came with Unterberger's book. Quiet, mysterious, and vaguely gothic, these folk-rock originals sound otherworldly - especially for 1967. I've included three of them for your listening pleasure:

"Frozen Laughter" - the Rising Storm

"To L.N. Who Doesn't Know" - the Rising Storm

"The Rain Falls Down" - the Rising Storm

Enjoy.

Edit: Updated links. Apparently two of them weren't working. My bad.