Two months ago I was reviewing albums in my Florida apartment, watching tropical rain shake the trees outside. Now I'm sitting on a rock overlooking a tiny town in the Pacific Northwest, as the dying day illuminates Mt. Baker like a pink ice cream sundae. The appropriate soundtrack for my new environment: Norfolk and Western's Dusk in Cold Parlours, released this October on Portland's Hush Records. As a longtime fan of sleepy, wistful indie-folk, I knew the instant my housemates turned me onto this that I'd be hi-jacking it for the late afternoon walks to my lookout spot.
Evoking an even dreamier Dean Wareham/Britta Phillips combo, frontman Adam Selzer and percussionist Rachel Blumberg (also of the Decemberists) create a delicate frame of sound throughout Dusk, their vocals complemented by David Welch on bass and Tono Moreno’s eerie, twinkly guitar and organ work. The twelve vignette-like songs explore the nuances of mostly awkward moments, such as a broken engagement ("A Marriage Proposal") or returning home to attend the funeral of a lover's parent ("Terrified"). N&W do this with just the right touch of sentimentality, exposing the story's barest elements and letting the music elaborate on the mood, to wonderful effect. Many of the songs, like the haunting "Disappear," escalate into beautiful crescendos that, fading out just as mysteriously, segue well into the next track.
Dusk is emotional and intense, but refuses to become the kind of album you can only listen to when depressed. It's no simple collection of love songs or rote melodrama. Instead, Selzer's lyrics read like perceptive observations -- on love, spirituality or social change -- from a lost journal I'd love to discover. Dusk in Cold Parlours revisits the yearning of Mojave 3's Ask Me Tomorrow, the quiet love letter that was Yo La Tengo's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, and even conjures ghostly whispers of Patsy Cline. Like the aforementioned artists, Norfolk and Western have clearly poured their heart and soul into their fourth album, one of my favorites of 2003. My only complaint is that at 39 minutes, it's entirely too brief. However, it is the perfect length by which to watch the sunset.
1.A Marriage Proposal
2.Letters Opened in the Bar
3.Terrified
4.Kelly Bauman
5.Jealousy, It's True
6.Impossible
7.Oslo
8.Disappear
9.No Where Else He Can Go
10.A Hymnal
11.The Tired Words
12.At Dawn or Dusk
More about: Norfolk & Western
