The Maze - Armageddon (Reissue) (1968/1995)

An obscure San Francisco-area group that cut one extremely rare album in 1968, Armageddon (recorded at Leo Kulka's Golden State Recorders, and issued on MTA), which is highly valued in some collector circles. Actually, they don't rank as a very impressive find, in fact epitomizing some of the period's least enduring excesses. They originally recorded under the name Stonehenge, with a female vocalist, before assuming their more familiar name, and left behind a good deal more than an album's worth of tracks, some of which turned up on the 1995 Sundazed CD reissue of Armageddon. Their all-original material emphasized heavy organ, long, drawn-out fuzzy guitar solos, despondent stoned vocals, and minor-key melodies, somewhat in the mold of Iron Butterfly, though not as bombastic. An alternate take of "Whispering Shadows," written by Wayne Gardner -- who composed all but two of the ten songs on Armageddon, fellow members J. Jensen, C. Boyd, and Richard Eittreim dividing two songs between the three of them -- was included on Gear Fab's 1997 Psychedelic Crown Jewels, Vol. 1.