Calm Before...

Album review

The Rising Storm were six guys attending Phillips Academy, a prep school in Andover, MA, between 1964 and 1967. Like lots of high school kids of the era, they figured playing in a rock & roll band would be good fun (and help them meet girls), so they started rocking school dances and mixers, and near the end of their run (which coincided with graduation), they decided to document their musical career by making an album. The resulting LP, Calm Before..., became a sacred text among New England garage rock collectors years later, and it's not hard to see why. The Rising Storm often sound like a bunch of high school kids on this album (especially lead singer Tony Thompson, whose vocal range sometimes suggests puberty was still taking hold), but they're also clearly stronger than the average teen garage band of the era. The Rising Storm sound tight and confident throughout Calm Before... which still boasting a potent stock of youthful energy, and while they play their share of covers, the band's originals are the real high points here. "Frozen Laughter," "Mr. Wind," "The Rain Falls Down," and "To L.N./Who Doesn't Know" are moody, atmospheric numbers that walk a graceful line between folk-rock and psychedelia, while rockers like "She Loved Me" and "I'm Coming Home" stomp hard while displaying a creative ambition well beyond the usual fuzztone sneer of would-be Rolling Stones. Even the covers here are interesting -- along with standard garage rock fare like "Big Boss Man" and "In the Midnight Hour," the Rising Storm tackle Love's "A Message to Pretty" and the Remains' "Don't Look Back," and they lay into the relative obscurities with passion and imagination. Not many teen groups who financed and pressed their own records had the imagination or the chops of the Rising Storm, and if the results are a few notches down from amazing, in a genre where the best bands rarely cranked out more than four or five good tracks, the Rising Storm made an LP with a dozen worthwhile songs, and it certainly deserves its cult following.

© Mark Deming /TiVo