With The Bloom and The Blight, San Francisco’s Two Gallants nicely straddle between garage-rock guitar-and-drums duo and blue-rock guitar-and-drums duo. Both those styles of duos are a little overplayed these days, and struggle for originality. The Bloom and The Blight doesn’t reinvent the game, but combines the two into something bigger.
After the quieter and more country-flavored Two Gallants way back in 2007, the pair took some time off, switched labels, and got bigger (musically, but not staff-wise – they’re still just a duo) for The Bloom and The Blight. The crashing garage-blues rock of opener “Halycon Days” sets the stage very well for Bloom, as Two Gallants bring a more evocative garage-blues cry to their sound. There are some more stripped down songs, such as the folk-twang “Broken Eyes” and finger-pluck beauty “Decay”, but that’s not what the group does best, and are mostly interesting only as a change from the big rock on the rest of the record.
Two Gallants might not be challenging guitar-and-drums garage duos like No Age (QRO live review) or blues duos like The Black Keys (QRO album review) yet – but with The Bloom and The Blight, they can slip in, in between them.
MP3 Stream: “Ride Away“
