Two Gallants: Saddle CreekAn unhappy marriage of sounds October 3,
2007 4:31:29 PM
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
|
|
Vote now in over 100 categories including the best local restaurants, comedian, filmmaker, performance artist, and yoga studio
Vote now in over 100 categories including the best local jukebox, bartender, dance club, and tattoo shop
Vote now in over 100 categories including best beer selection, bike route, gallery, and movie house
|
- Fans are paying the price for the Sox success: inside the Fenway fiasco
- The soap-operatic significance of the Bay Guardian–Village Voice Media battle
- Some Things at Trinity
- Never mind its tough-girl alt-porn feminism: SuicideGirls has already moved on to a new generation
- The Big Hurt: Trent Reznor pushes the premium fabric-bound envelope
- The first political leader of my generation acts nothing like the rest of us — which might be how he’s gotten where he is
- Fans are paying the price for the Sox success: inside the Fenway fiasco
- Meet Adam Gaffin, Boston’s reigning Web czar
- The Clean House at New Rep; Gary at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
- The soap-operatic significance of the Bay Guardian–Village Voice Media battle
- Teatro Lirico I at the Majestic Theatre, March 2, 2008
- The first political leader of my generation acts nothing like the rest of us — which might be how he’s gotten where he is
|
-
The Shepherd's Dog | Sub Pop
|
- The Pubcrawlers give you a reason to celebrate, March 17
- Get Awkward | Ecstatic Peace/Universal
- ECM
- Keep It Simple | Lost Highway
- All Things Are from Him, through Him and in Him | audioMER
- Kimbanda Nzila | iMak
- Nonesuch
- ATO
- Autumn Fallin' | Blue Note
- Words of Love | LML Music
|
|
|
|