Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
A good start for the band, but perhaps not for first time listeners to Norfolk and Western, 6 Oct 2007
This is the first Norfolk and Western record and by and large sets out the territory for what has followed. There's a clearly folk-influenced element to Selzer's approach to song-writing and an almost classical use of viola that could give some tracks a traditional feel, but this is always balanced out by the production, with its very far from traditional use of sound and often edgy feel, and by the fact that some tracks have a harder, more `alternative' feel. Add to this the range of instruments used and the tendency to sudden changes of tone and tempo and you've got a typically unclassifiable Norfolk and Western CD.
It's worth knowing tthat the band has produced five CDs to date. In reverse order these are: The Unsung Colony (2006) A Gilded Age (2006) Dusk in Cold Parlours (2003) - Winter Farewell (2002) and this one, Centralia (2000), released on the Film Guerrero label. The band has always been something of a fluctuating collective, with Adam Selzer (vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer at type foundry), and Amanda Lawrence (viola) as founding members. Ex-Decemberist Rachel Bloomberg (vocalist, drummer, songwriter, and another multi-instrumentalist), who does not play on centralia, has been a core member since joining the band for Winter Farewell.
Centralia is very much Adam Selzer's record - he wrote, sung and recorded all the songs and does the bulk of the playing. Not only does his trademark introspection as a song-writer set the tone of the record, but his use of soundscapes on Of Divided Night, My Ambiguity Frustrates, and Spanish Thoughts (Excerpt), and of guitar distortion and fade on Say Goodbye (Play Me A Melody) set a pattern that has been consistent ever since in terms of the more sonically experimental aspect of the band's records. The track Settle In also signals the kind of sly humour that lightens Selzer's lyrics and . If this suggests a record that's too self-consciously tricky in its production for its own good (and there are odd moments when it comes close to this), this side of the record is balanced both by melodies and the richness and variety of the instrumentation of different songs. This approach lifts tracks that begin as little more than a vocal, strummed guitar and soundscape - listen, for example, to the viola on the second half of Take Off Your Diamonds and the guitar on Her Averah.
This is probably not the best CD to start with if you have yet to sample the delights of Norfolk | |
See all customer reviews...
