As the Middletown, Maryland instrumental trio Admiral Browning embrace their inner carnival barker on the 2009 EP, Magic Elixir (Dancing Sasquatch Records), it becomes increasingly difficult to place them in one genre or another. There’s something heavily progressive about the riffing and soloing of guitarist Matt LeGrow, but the songs, which are largely led by the guitar, could still be classified as stoner, if only for that. The rhythm section of Ron McGuiness (bass) and Tim Otis (drums) are just as ready to lead the charge, and at any moment and a quick switch from part to part, they might. The music is adventurous, familiar and inspired. Straightforward and somehow not.

Magic Elixir opens with “Vortexer,” showing at 8:56 Admiral Browning’s knack for allowing a song to evolve naturally. Though I don’t doubt considerable cognition goes into their writing process, the flow works at least for the most part. They stay away from verse/chorus structures, which is fair since without vocals they have neither, and the linear path “Vortexer” takes feels every bit as correct as it possibly could. Samples throughout the EP provide a spoken element, and at no point does it feel like something else is missing.

“Ol’ Martini Man” and “No Good Stones” follow immediately. The former at its root has a heady stoner boogie but rather than solely repeating the same progression over and over, uses it as a foundation for further development. “Ol’ Martini Man” comes off more straightforward than “Vortexer,” but not so much so that the songs don’t work one to the next. Likewise, the transition to “No Good Stones,” which is based around acoustic guitar and a sample running its entire 3:48, is as fluid as one could expect. “No Good Stones” keeps to a more staid tact, the guitar peppered with bluesy lead lines but holding basically the same rhythm the whole time.

The epic, 13:18, “Speaking in Tones” — an apt description of the goal for any instrumental project — holds both some of the best parts of Magic Elixir and also one of its most awkward fits. The song begins with a slowly building, delayed lead line, but the mood is broken when at 4:15, a louder guitar comes in to introduce the next movement, a faster run of notes that sits strangely alongside what came before it. To contrast, just over two minutes later, a riff that would do any number of Southern supergroups proud shows up and for just a little bit, things get very metal for Admiral Browning. It’s a cool way to begin the track’s second half, and though there’s an untitled bonus track of what sounds like an impromptu jam, it’s clear where the highlight of Magic Elixir lies.

Enamored as I am of the current Maryland scene and fortunate enough as I’ve been to see Admiral Browning live, I’ll say that their sound has grown perceptibly over the last several years and shows little sign of changing its course in that regard. It wouldn’t be disappointing to hear them reach outside the band more on their next release, maybe throw in some non-traditional rock instrumentation to complement the structural freedom, but Magic Elixir’s relentless and considered approach is in no way a letdown. If anything, it only confirms the affection I already had for the band’s work.

Admiral Browning on MySpace

Tags: Admiral Browning, Dancing Sasquatch, Maryland

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.