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Two Gallants
What The Toll Tells
Saddle Creek
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Article
written by James A
Feb 9, 2006.
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You would be forgiven for thinking you’ve been here before. An American duo with as much as a nod to the past as the present, one on guitar, one on drums, with shared vocal duties. This is no record company attempt to copy a blueprint though, the two band members are Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel, the band are Two Gallants and the record label is Saddle Creek. Much like label boss Conor Oberst’s Bright Eyes’ the past is respected but used as a jump off point rather than a template.
Starting off with the howling wind carrying a whistle across some imaginary plain you are lulled into the atmospherics before Las Cruces Jail kicks in. It’s a tale of being incarcerated for murderous wrongdoings and, on the chorus especially, is exactly how you’d imagine a prairie-dwelling Libertines to sound. The vocals are croaked and looking at the pair it’s a safe bet that they have lived a little on the wrong side of the tracks. The wind returns to close off a great album opener.
Steady Rollin’ is a lot more melodic in the traditional sense and is full of more despair “it’s too late to save me” he sings. It could easily be a Bob Dylan track from a time when you could make out what he was actually saying or Willy Mason if he lived up to all the hype. Some Slender Rest is miserabalist minimalism stretched over nine minutes, there is no need to speed it up but trimming off a few minutes wouldn’t have done any harm. A mouth organ’s presence continues the Dylan comparisons.
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| Two Galants |
Adam and Tyson have hopefully got an overactive imagination to have seen and felt such lows, being a tender 21.
Next up is Long Summer Day, more urgent and sung from the perspective of a down-trodden black man seeking employment in the south leading to trouble, strife and a hanging. On paper it sounds pretentious but works on record, probably best not to sing it out loud though. Obviously well versed in story telling the fact that their name is derived from a James Joyce story should come as no surprise.
A quest for more innocent days continues with The Prodigal Son, heading to the hills to be savage “I don’t need nobody, nobody needs me”. Another drawn out track appears in the form of Threnody In Minor B with the pair again belying their age. After an initial burst of noise Adam’s ragged yet charming vocals are back for 16th Street Dozens with added trumpets.
The album ends with Age Of Assassins and the biblical Waves Of Grain which both breach the eight minute mark and it sounds as if The Black Keys and The Pogues have turned up to party and have already begun to feel sorry for themselves.
You’ll be hearing more of these, which is something that might cheer Adam and Tyson up, but then again...
Untitled Document
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