CD Reviews

Two Gallants: Saddle Creek

An unhappy marriage of sounds

By DAVID BRUSIE | October 3, 2007

1.5 Stars

Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel have long been trying for a sound that’s both earthy and artsy, Bright Eyes folk rock delivered with an aw-shucks squint. So far — on two full-lengths and a pair of EPs — the results have been underwhelming. That trend continues on this homonymous disc. The good songs — the bitter “The Hand That Held Me Down” and the driving “Despite What You’ve Been Told” — work because their fast tempos match Stephens’s strong, razor-like voice. When he sings, “The heights to which you drag me/Just to hurl your scorn,” he spits the words. But on songs with a laid-back, solemn feel — the plodding “Ribbons Round My Tongue,” the hymn-like “Fly Low Carrion Crow” — that acidic delivery is distracting. Until Two Gallants find a way to marry their two sounds — one shrill and pointed, the other dull and blunt — we’ll just have to settle for Conor Oberst.

Two Gallants + Blitzen Trapper + Songs For Mom | Middle East Upstairs, 472-480 Mass Ave, Cambridge | October 5 | 617.854.EAST

Related: Two Gallants, Indie springs forward, The man and the band, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Blitzen Trapper, Adam Stephens, Tyson Vogel, More

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Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel have long been trying for a sound that’s both earthy and artsy, Bright Eyes folk rock delivered with an aw-shucks squint.