Words by Jacob Henneman//Illustration by Jay Arner
Americana is a shapeshifting beast that means a different thing for all of those who have experienced pieces of it. In searching for what exactly it means for you, there are many destinations that could be visited. You could travel down gritty gravel roads where broken down farmhouses overlook ancient oaks with tire swings and fields of worn topsoil. You could jump directly into the melting pot: travel through metropolitan streets and back alleys breathing in the fumes and listening to the call of curbside muses battling the traffic horns and clanking of change into instrument cases. You could travel out west and visit dusty ghost towns or museums detailing the legacies of old west outlaws and frontier legends.

On Unsung Colony, Norfolk & Western’s fourth studio album and second release within half a year, the band explains just what Americana means to them. The band bakes up a good ol’ apple pie and presents a slice of it on a platter battered and tarnished by the passing down of generations throughout the nation’s history. There are ingredients such as the migration out to the frontier west, the rise of industry and evolution of cities into steaming pools of cultural cross-sections, and conflict and its effects (because what would an album dealing with Americana be without war?).

Singer Adam Selzer plays the role of historical onlooker. He’s the guy in the corner slowly strumming, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings, but you know the wheels in his head are turning, the mental notes writing and sighting nuances and searching out hidden meanings. His hushed voice understates the often importance of the lyrics. There are subtleties that seem like minute details in the scope of the breadth of history, but Selzer recognizes the importance of even the most miniscule. He recognizes the individual versus the overall event.

Perhaps the strongest track on the album, “The Shortest Stare,” follows the object of an onlooker’s affection through a subway describing her fashion and guileless disposition as she has a trivial exchange with a starving trumpeter. Though smitten by her grace, he cannot make himself act on it. It’s the same story in 100 cities, with 100 people. If you peel off the surface layer, the layer that is but another ordinary day in the subway, you will find the fascinating meaty details.

Consequential details are presented under the scope of the much larger events. “The New Rise of Labor” is an old western documentary of justice and patriotism after the Gold Rush dried up. “From the Interests of Few” is a Vietnam retrospect that announces “_Well it’s worse than ‘68 now that there’s no common cry_.” “How to Reel In” follows a protagonist that ran away from home years ago, but now finds the need to return and retool, but she can’t bring herself to reintroduce herself to her aging father. All these examples illustrate the story within the bigger picture. All the history books have taught us are cemented facts, words that have been written and rewritten thousands of times. Norfolk presents more feeling and emotion than every history tome collecting dust, than any amount of editions piling information on top of limitless measured information.

So, there it is. Only the crumbs remain from the Americana pie. Wash it down and don’t worry, if there’s anything to be sure about, it is the fact that there will be many more pies and delicacies to please your belly because if you’ve learned anything from the history books (or the professors, for that matter), it should be the fact that history repeats itself. Someday that house at the end of gravel drive will be restored, or demolished. There will be someone somewhere who again runs away from home and is forced to swallow their pride and return to the place they left. There will be wars, secret subway loves, recurrences and rehashes everywhere. Unsung Colony is but a sign of the times, whenever and wherever those times take place under the shadow of the stars and bars.

Norfolk & Western
Hush Records