Though Portland-based singer/songwriter Adam Selzer still holds the center of this formerly hushed folk collective, the band's sound continues to grow on A Gilded Age, with a large assortment of instruments and full-band arrangements. Unlikely combinations abound: banjos prancing atop accordions one minute, pedal steel floating over crunching distortion on the title track alone; "Watch the Days Slowly Fade" uses copious amounts of radio static on what's their poppiest song yet. Despite all the jumping around, A Gilded Age meshes surprisingly well and retains the band's vintage fetish, so even modern touches like the distorted lead guitar in "We Were All Saints" smell of musk and mothballs.
Two of these eight tracks first appeared on Norfolk & Western's self-released 2005 album, If You Were Born Overseas. Given its ambitious instrumentation, A Gilded Age may seem like a new beginning, but it really just extends last year's baby steps, and these fleshed-out arrangements still sound pretty twee. (Seltzer's percussionist and songwriting foil is Rachel Blumberg of the Decemberists, whose lead on "Minor Daughter" is every bit as precious and creepy as an eyeless porcelain doll).
The bigger sound isn't always best: the careful pace and slow strumming of opener "Porch Destruction" are well suited to Selzer's laconic delivery, but the strings feel punched in and suffocate an otherwise excellent track. Indeed, Selzer's voice loses some of its gravity amongst all these new toys; in more forced moments of genre blending, like the doo-wop chorus between the maritime song-story verses of "Clyde & New Orleans", Norfolk & Western come across like teens looting their grandparents' wardrobes. When the songs work, as with the impossibly gentle "A Voice Through the Wall", it's precisely because Selzer's voice carries them through.
Even with the booklet's brief explanations for each song, I wonder if Selzer is more concerned with buttressing his band's sound than having something to say. The shift in focus is understandable, and the brevity of an EP is the perfect place to explore new territory, but it feels like Norfolk & Western are still building towards something grand without making any bold declarations.
