Two Gallants - What The Toll Tells (Saddle Creek)
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Melody, musicianship, storytelling - people will tell you this is a return to the good old fashioned values of classic song writing. And whilst you'll be able to see where their well meant words are coming from, enough time spent with 'What The Toll Tells' and you'll be able to turn round and assure them with vigour that far from its past, this is song writing's future.
OK, reference points - Dylan, Young, Springsteen in a power cut. You'll know where to file it, but if your system is one of hierarchy of enjoyment rather than the alphabet, genre or chronology, you might find yourself in something of a pickle. It's still song writing after all, not a new field unto itself. But, honest to goodness, you really may not have heard it done like this before. No themes left to chance, every idea executed to its logical conclusion, all ends tied up. It can take ages, but will always leave you feeling perfectly fulfilled.
And yeah, it's utterly bloody punk rock as well. Fighting the law, massive intermittent bursts of sound and an inimitable growl are all thrown your way within the first song (the marvellous 'Las Cruces Jail'), suggesting that if they weren't so adept at crafting such colossal pieces of subtle, pensive musicianship they could have a marvellous career as a heavy metal band. But they save these moments for when their wrath is least expected. You spend the whole record strapped in awaiting their arrival.
Once comfortable in your seat, attention turns to the bulk of the record, the often mammoth tales told in the middle of the delicate plucking of steel strings and gentle striking of skins you heard thrashed at mere seconds ago. These aren't just here for respite, this is where they really concentrate, the parts where they borrow from the greats only to push the template as far as it can, for now, possibly go. They're nine minutes long because that's how long the stories are. To throw in the towel before then would be to walk out from a pretty fantastic film just because your tiny brain can't be bothered to pay attention any more. Keep up.
If you can do two things brilliantly it's only a matter of time before you wonder what would happen when you try to do them both at the same time. And here, the Two Gallants reach their zenith, adding to the tales a sonic blast which can carry a theme from being a minor concern to the forefront of the attention simply by bashing it out with more volume, using the part of Adam Stephens' voice that delivers a growl rather than a gentle whisper. For these, see the dynamic gymnastics of 'Age of Assassins' or the sudden rock and roll onslaught that happens midway through '16th St. Dozens', or if it's all release and no restraint required, have a little shame injected in to your rich white self by 'Long Summer Day', the bounciest retelling of the evils of slavery one shall ever hear a Caucasian sing (albeit from the perspective of someone under the whip).
Tuneful but thorny, accessible but complicated, colossal but painfully focused - 'What the Toll Tells' is easily the best record of the forty three days passed so far this year. And such is its ambition, you'd think it'd be disappointed if anything bar the next Gallants record in the coming years bettered it.
Artists in this article: Two Gallants
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