Two Gallants- What The Toll Tells Review
Posted by Brian Berry on 03.02.2006
2nd album by San Francisco duo who's sure to appear on many year end lists.
Background
Two Gallants are longtime, San Francisco chums Adam Stephens (lead vocals, guitars, harmonica, harp) and Tyson Vogel (backing vocals, drums). They founded the band in 2002 while they were still teenagers. After writing several tunes, the duo began playing impromptu shows at the Mission Street BART stations (the Bay Area's answer to subways) and at house parties. Their first album, The Throes (Alive Records, 2004), was greeted warmly by press and showed off the band's ability to cross genres, ranging from blues to country to folk to hardcore punk. Now, just barely of drinking age, Two Gallants return with their second album, What the Toll Tells.
Recommended if you dig: White Stripes, The Pogues, Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, Black Keys, Bob Dylan
Two Gallants-What the Toll Tells (Saddle Creek Records)
released February 21st, 2006
What the Toll Tells opens with the sound of swirling winds and distant, slow whistling, creating the atmosphere of a ship pulling into port. This intro makes perfect sense when matched with Two Gallants' brand of whiskey soaked sea chantys and fabricated folktales. An alternate listen might suggest the much harsher chilling breeze and morose whistling surrounding a public lynching. Given the darker tone of their new album, the latter appears to be a more accurate take.
The strength of Two Gallants' stories lay in the knowledge that, while Adam Stephens' and Tyson Vogel haven't lived out the tales they sing of, the duo can identify with its' lyrical subjects, thus conjuring their fictionalized spirits. Their first album for Saddle Creek Records (home to Bright Eyes, Cursive) shows these two young men improving upon their now trademark blend of white boy blues and outlaw country, with a couple dollops of angst-riddled punk rock.
The songs from their debut album focused on desperate, depressed characters who managed to maintain a faint glimmer of hope for new beginnings. The subjects were pushed right up to the edge of alcohol-induced rage and obsessive yearning for a woman who ran away. While none of the tracks were optimistic, one could sense that positive change would come to the characters with time.
Conversely, the subjects of What the Toll Tells are pushed beyond the point of no return. On the murder themed opening track (‘Las Cruces Jail'), Stephens' sings: "Twenty one fell by my gun/with bullets in their brains/Just need one more to match my age/Then I'll count my killin' done." The voice is that of a bad guy protagonist, such as those Clint Eastwood played in spaghetti westerns. While we'd be damned to root for him in real life, we have to hope that he has a hell of a gunfight with the deputies while busting out of jail. Passively submitting to the noose wouldn't make for a good story, right?
On this and other tracks, we find Stephens' using the voice of the socially overlooked: victims of racial injustice (‘Long Summer Day'), predisposed alcoholics (‘The Prodigal Son'), and lower-class communities consumed by crime (‘16th St. Dozens'). In doing so, he provides a first-person, dynamic narration of events generally given a flattened, distant once over by television and print media.
The highlights on the album are ‘Las Cruces Jail', and ‘16th St. Dozens'. The latter has the widest range of sounds on the set and, along with ‘The Prodigal Son', also might be the most truth-based song here. After Vogel distantly screams the song's countdown, ‘16th St. Dozens' opens with a full on hardcore punk assault of guitar and drums, which wouldn't sound out of place on an early Minutemen or Meat Puppets record. The tempo halts abruptly to gently strummed guitar and words sung softly about San Francisco's Mission district.
We're told of junkies, the homeless, and the sadly ignored folks in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the Bay Area. Soon, horns accompany the vocals adding a worldly texture to the song. In the Mission, Stephens' explains, there are "unheard hoodlums on parade" committing crimes while policemen and city officials turn their back. At the climax, the lyrics are now a mix of Spanish and English, with blaring horns, and a lightning fast beat. The whole of this song distances Two Gallants from the criminals sung of throughout the rest of the album in favor of the hope for some sanity in a nearly unmanageable locale. Here, Two Gallants are at their most gut wrenching.
The album only stutters for a couple of reasons. With four songs over eight minutes long, some editing wouldn't hurt. A few snips here and there wouldn't take from the mood of these songs but this is only a minor issue. The other qualm is with the song ‘Long Summer Day', which is told from the perspective of a Black man presumably in the South. While there is no ill intent by the song's message (i.e. life isn't worth living if you don't have personal freedom) the use of the word ‘nigger' in the song is problematic, especially when coming from somebody who doesn't share the cultural experience or ancestry of its subject. I could write a dissertation on this topic but I'll leave it at that. Otherwise, this album is almost always on point.
Stephens' gnarled vocals and jittery guitar playing, matched with Tyson Vogel's pained backing vocals (best exemplified on ‘Thernody') and punchy drumming are a complimentary match. This is heart on the table punk without the self-pity of emo. Their mature worldview, far exceeding their age, always impresses. Their unexpected tempo changes make the music, like their wily subjects, unpredictable and riveting. The production, cut on analog film, give the music a textural rawness suiting the content. Hopefully, Two Gallants continue to mature as songwriters and musicians as they did on What the Toll Tells.
The 411: What the Toll Tells is much darker than their debut. Their lyricism and musicianship have improved, while the raw production compliments the overall tone of the album. Although they appropriate from several musical influences, Two Gallants' sound is unique and easily identifiable. Recommended.
