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Admiral Browning, Corvette Summer: Devil’s Dilemma

Posted in Reviews on October 21st, 2015 by JJ Koczan

admiral browning corvette summer tape and case

Not familiar with the 1978 film from which Admiral Browning‘s Corvette Summer takes its name? Don’t sweat it. I don’t think the band could hold it against you. Corvette Summer stars a post-Star Wars, pre-Empire Mark Hamill as a recent high school grad whose sportscar gets stolen and he spends the entire summer trying to track down the jerks who took it. Yup, that’s the movie. On the tape version of Admiral Browning‘s latest EP, you even get to hear the audio from the trailer. How the Maryland three-piece came into awareness of its existence, I don’t know, but for an outfit who’ve always specialized in doing things just a little weird, just a little their own way, to release a hand-signed red metallic four-song limited tape EP (five if you grab the download) with two studio tracks on side one and two live tracks on side two, housed in a classic red case with their logo in a blazing late-’70s font at the top makes a fitting kind of sense. It’s better not to ask questions, in other words. Just roll with it.

It’s been two years since Admiral Browning‘s fifth album, Give No Quarter (review here), was released. A change in geographic situation — i.e. one of them moved — can be blamed for a relative lack of activity, but Corvette Summer was put together to coincide with a recent week-plus on the road, and they’ve embarked on a series of digital, expanded reissues for their past albums, so guitarist Matt LeGrow, bassist Ron “Fez” McGinnis and drummer Tim Otis are by no means done.

And in addition to sitting on the merch table at shows, Corvette Summer serves the further purpose of pushing the long-instrumental outfit’s continuing experiment with vocals even further than did the last album, LeGrow and McGinnis harmonizing on the side one studio cuts “Human Dilemma” and “The Devil’s in the Details” to an effective degree that enhances the bizarro-prog sensibility that has long been in their songcraft while also grounding the material in a way that supports their blazing turns of rhythm rather than detracting from them. Particularly the latter, “The Devil’s in the Details,” is delivered with a focus on hook that, when Admiral Browning released Battle Stations (review here) in 2011 probably would’ve been inconceivable for them. That’s not to critique their progression one way or another, just noting that in addition to their grooves, sometimes the nature of the band itself is given to unexpected shifts.

That also suits Admiral Browning well, and if Corvette Summer is meant to be an experiment in realizing the next stage of the band, they deliver a comprehensive glimpse at where they might be headed between sides one and two. Recorded in March at Cafe 611 in Frederick, MD, at a gig which also hosted local luminaries Righteous BloomNagato and Faith in Jane, both cuts on the tape — “Corvette Summer” itself and “Spanish Trampoline” — are instrumental, but the download also gives a live version of “Human Dilemma” as a bonus track that finds LeGrow and McGinnis working through the vocal arrangement smoothly on stage while Otis pushes through his standard-operating-procedure cardiovascular drumming method behind.

The core of Admiral Browning‘s approach has always been the trio’s ability to remain heavy in the face of technical intricacy and to groove while fulfilling frenetic pacing and unrepentant nuance. That has not changed, but their melodic conceptualization has, and ultimately makes them a stronger, more versatile act. I wouldn’t necessarily expect Admiral Browning after Corvette Summer to go all-out, vocals-every-song, verse-into-chorus-into-verse on every release from here on out, but the simple fact that they have another tool in their arsenal — two, if you count the contributions of both singers — only broadens their reach as they move forward.

Hopefully they do move forward. Corvette Summer plays a distinct role as a stopgap in demonstrating the trio’s commitment despite living apart — the tour does likewise — but the question remains as to what their process might be for putting together a full-length follow-up to Give No Quarter while essentially having to work around an all-in-the-same-room approach or otherwise jam out in limited or intermittent stretches. Whatever they do next, the progression they continue to show in everything they do is plainly evident in “Human Dilemma” and “The Devil’s in the Details,” and while the tape is short, it finds them undaunted in their considerable task. If this is how Admiral Browning can keep growing, then so be it. They still sound like a band who needs to be making this music, and they deliver here with a clarity that highlights how underrated they truly are.

Admiral Browning, “The Devil’s in the Details” Live in MD, 2013

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