Two Gallants

“Despite What You’ve Been Told“
from the album Two Gallants
2007
iTunes

Two Gallants is another two-piece outfit, like the White Stripes, but with a penchant for introspective folk rather than the blues.

This self-titled album is the third full-length release by longtime San Francisco friends Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel. There are fragile acoustic ballads, such as the lovely “Trembling of the Rose,” interspersed with looser garage-friendly songs such as “The Hand That Held Me Down.”

The latter exposes the appealing raw side of Stephens’ singing as well as his harmonica work, and unveils the duo’s unexpected secret weapon: Vogel’s noisy, oddly syncopated drumming. His pounding gives the song an emotional punch that is elevated by the more delicate material around it.

There are so many slow songs that things venture dangerously close to sad-sack territory by the time the Gallants trudge into “Ribbons Round My Tongue,” just past the disc’s halfway point.

That’s about the time that Vogel’s raucous rhythms resurface to propel “Despite What You’ve Been Told,“ maybe the album’s best compromise between Two Gallants’ raw and pretty sides. It gets stiff competition, however, from the closing “My Baby’s Gone,” with guitar that seems to sound both chipper and harsh.

For music primarily based on guitars and drums (acoustic guitars, at that), Two Gallants is mighty complex, whether the sound is tough or tender.