The Norfolk & Western railway was, in a lot of ways, a quintessentially American construct. The "Norfolk" is Norfolk, Virginia, still one of the country's busiest ports, and in the rail line's pre-Civil War nascence, the "Western" was western Virginia, the Appalachian regions that otherwise took days to reach. Over time, like any well-run business, Norfolk & Western expanded, buying other rail lines and extending its passenger and freight services across the Eastern half of the country. The company became something of an icon for American ingenuity and progress, a footnote to the larger American experience. And then, in 1998, after more than a century, it ceased to exist, subsumed by the financial interests of larger competitors, and gone without fanfare, leaving behind little more than appreciative websites set up by admirers.
The railway also left its name to an unassuming Northwestern songwriter named Adam Selzer, whose quiet whisper of a voice delivers his songs of meditative resignation with a solemn, understated grace. Selzer's project got off to an inauspicious start in the same year that the Norfolk & Western gave way to the new economy, with a Spartan EP called a Collection of Norfolk & Western that showed some promise but didn't quite fulfill it. Since then, Selzer's thrown his recordings open to an ever-widening group of collaborators, including M. Ward and Calexico's Joey Burns, and as his sound has expanded, he's staked out a nice piece of atmospheric folk ground for himself. His two full-lengths thus far have worked on incorporating a wide range of textures into his simple songs, and this one continues the trend.
Dusk in Cold Parlours wastes no time in attesting to the aptness of its title with "A Marriage Proposal". Accompanied by banjo, piano, buzzing organ, brushed drums and watercolor electric guitar, the song is a stark reading of Selzer's poetic take on a couple's engagement despite their uncertainty of the future. The sound is dusty and sepia-toned, a sound the band takes to another level entirely a few songs later on "Terrified", whose spacious corners are awash in vibraphone, B3 and Raymond Richards' gorgeous pedal steel. Multi-instrumentalist Rachel Blumberg offers breathy backing vocals that perfectly meld with Selzer's own voice-- her impact on the album as a whole is inestimable, as she not only provides all of the relaxed drumming that drives it, but also plays about half a dozen other instruments, from piano to tubular bells.
The ensemble offers two excellent instrumentals to fully flesh the mood they're going for; the first, "Kelly Bauman", is a cockeyed swirl of melting carnival organ and M. Ward's trembling, immediately recognizable guitar playing. The other instrumental, "A Hymnal", belongs to guest cellist Anna Fritz, whose portamento flights are the most sensual thing on the album.
One thing the instrumentals make plain is the band's sense of dynamic interplay, perhaps the single greatest element of their success-- the music breathes and is always in the midst of a rise or a fall, and it turns songs that might otherwise sound pedestrian into something much greater. Dusk in Cold Parlours is the kind of album that rewards multiple listens, revealing details slowly but surely, and once it captures you, it's hard to escape its grasp. But then, it's hard to imagine why you'd want to.
