Album Review

Score 8.1
Written by Ross Main
Published on 7/19/2009
“Attention Ladies and Gentleman, please bear witness to this phenomenal all natural mixture. Good for man or beast. A cure to what ails you. Never before have so many ingredients been brought together to form such a soothing concoction,” pitches the sinisterly monocled peddler, moments before Maryland’s Admiral Browning chug down the first swig of their Magic Elixir.

Basically instrumental from now on in, opening oddity “Vortexer” is a rumbling stroke through demented fuzzy flavors, exploring everything between a bouncy rock tempo to the slow motion faints of 10 b.p.m., guitars tuned to Z with the San Andreas Fault on bass. Wriggly unthemed guitar lines spice up the doom-laded slabs of sluggery, like Mastodon rockin’ it backwards over Candlemass; only beginning to set any sort of tone for this bizarre audio potion.

As the second track “Ol’ Martini Man” progresses further under the influence of a foreign substance, with the tonal aesthetics of Stoner Rock, but the into-action tempo of a hippy drill sergeant, it becomes clear pretty quickly that this is an album exercising very little boundaries and adheres to no rules whatsoever; only beginning to set any sort of tone for this sporadic musical medicine.

The pleasingly disjointed and unharmonious mess that is “No Good Stories” follows with a shortened length southern-fried acoustic mash that brings them back to their hanging-out-with-Ravi-Shankar phase. It’s beautiful, but threatens to rewire your brain if you listen too closely; only beginning to set any sort of tone for these weird tasting sound waves.

By now it’s obvious this record can only be dissected on a track-by-track basis, but crossing the line just under the half hour mark makes “Speaking in Tones” the final (and most sizeable) piece; not including a pretty rough and jammy modern-day-Hendrix hidden track. Admiral Browning conclude by taking the pace down for a bass-conducted 10,000 Days atmosphere before falling into some wilder but more conventional - sometimes harmonized - riffing and classic-styled soloing that explore the multi-textured tones of Matt LeGrow’s guitar inside and out.

A fairground of rusty demons and head-banging angels, the peddler was right; never before HAVE so many ingredients been brought together to form such a soothing concoction. You should feel ill at ease with the distorted circus of free thought one dose of this album will take you to, but you won’t. Instead you’ll go back for more, revisiting to find new things that make you feel at home outside of your own head… and that’s only beginning to set any sort of tone for this. This Magic Elixir.



Karl J's Avatar
Karl J | posted on 7/2009 | Reply
Another in the long list of great bands that I only know about thanks to Metal Review. Got Dead Pets and Maiden Voyage right after reading the Dead Pets review and now it looks like I'll be a little poorer yet again. This year has really been an embarrassment of riches...
Dayeth's Avatar
Dayeth | posted on 7/2009 | Reply
Thanks for that fetusghost, I was blindly relying on spellchecker there. Fixed.
ex-inferis's Avatar
ex-inferis | posted on 7/2009 | Reply
they should be called admiral browneye
DeathMetalJesus's Avatar
DeathMetalJesus | posted on 7/2009 | Reply
I would really like it if only it had some vocals
fetusghost's Avatar
fetusghost | posted on 7/2009 | Reply
I'm pretty certain he said concoction, not concussion.
Dayeth's Avatar
Dayeth | posted on 7/2009 | Reply
Not at all. I did listen to Dead Pets, but decided to review it entirely on it's own merits - I didn't think a whole lot of people would be familiar with their older stuff. But yeah, they are a cracking band that deserve a bit more recognition.
DolphinDude31's Avatar
DolphinDude31 | posted on 7/2009 | Reply
LOVE this band. Really sucks that they've never really gotten enough of a reputation to break out of local gigs, but I've been a huge fan ever since Maiden Voyage and Dead Pets. This one is also incredible stuff. Also, great review. Describes the sound very well. Just curious, did you have any familiarity with the back catalog before you reviewed this one?