In his 1997 book Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes, Greil Marcus devised the term "the old, weird America" to describe the strange world that Dylan and the Band evoked in The Basement Tapes. It became such a popular and usefully evocative phrase that by the time his publisher issued an updated paperback edition in 2011, the original title had been dropped altogether in favor of the popular quote. In his new introduction, Marcus notes the change and remarks that "The Old, Weird America" was his original title for book, although it was rejected by both his U.S. and UK publishers. He also writes that the term may have been overused in the intervening decade: "It became a catchphrase, most often floating free of any source or attribution, as if it were itself a piece of some nineteenth-century folk song." It took on a life of its own, mutating with each use until it came to mean something distinctly different and distant from its original denotation, used to describe an array of acts who rarely ventured so self-consciously in the past.
"The old, weird America" implies not only a pre-rock or a pre-War regionalism, but primarily a world that existed before the industry made recordings widely available, one comprising musical communities where techniques and eccentricities sprung up outside of pop-cultural concerns. It's an attractive idea, one that today promises a safehaven for misfit artists eager to distinguish themselves from current pop-music trends. Never mind that early 20th-century musicians traveled widely, traded ideas with contemporaries, learned new tricks, and aspired to something like fame. Today "the old, weird America" has become a self-conscious genre that overlaps with Americana, indie rock, and the darker corners of country music. Certain ideas have become attached to the phrase, which means that it has become shorthand for a kind of commercial independence and creative authenticity that its first practitioners were never concerned with in the first place.
The duo Two Gallants have always played up this "old, weird America" connection self-consciously and studiously, yet there is very little that is old about the rough-edged indie metal on their fourth album, The Bloom and the Blight-- at least not "old" in the sense of Dock Boggs or Harry Smith's record collection. Nor are they exactly weird. Guitar player and chief songwriter Adam Stephens deploys gothic imagery of public hangings and apocalyptic riders, not to mention liberal references to the Bible (or at least an abbreviated Bible where Song of Solomon stands in for the entire Old Testament and the Book of Revelations for the entire New). Such an approach is shared by scores of dark Americana acts-- 16 Horsepower, Murder by Death, O'Death, and their ilk.
If Two Gallants' music proves a lot more satisfying than those bands', it's largely because Stephens is less besotted with borrowed profundity. With a voice that at times recalls Sebastian Bach of Skid Row (but in a good way) and a guitar that channels Georgia Satellites by way of Black Sabbath (but in a good way), he writes about public hangings and hell-raisin' alcoholics and dead babies the same way metal bans write about hobbits and demons. At their best, Two Gallants sound like they're just a few aerosol cans away from spraypainting Robert Mitchum on the side of their van.
It's refreshing, on one hand, to hear a band rough up old traditions with shameless metal theatrics on these new songs. "Ride Away" stands out as one of the best realizations of their particular aesthetic because it's so shameless in showcasing Stephens' throat-abrading howl, his galloping guitarwork, and Tyson Vogel's thundering drums. With producer John Congleton at the helm highlighting the instrumental interplay between the two musicians, The Bloom and the Blight recalls the Zep boom of the White Stripes or the boogie doom of Dax Riggs.
On the other hand, Two Gallants are dead serious about their enterprise, which means the album can sound airless and antiseptic, without the dusty mess and mystery of real history. As with any artist so steadfast, the possibility for self-parody threatens every verse and chorus. Even Leonard Cohen, king of the portentous Bible reference and bookmark-folk spiritual eroticism, would have certainly crossed out the chorus of "Song of Songs" and started over: "The Song of Solomon upon her lips, the light of morning in her eyes," Stephens sings. "The Jordan River in her graveyard hips, you know I'm bound to reach the other side."
To the extent that Two Gallants succeed, it's mostly due to the rock. Songs like "Ride Away" and even "Cradle Pyre", despite its ridiculous title, sound big and dramatic and full of import, yet the scorched guitars and pummeling drums are usually so mired in the folk-historical milieu that it's difficult to enjoy them. As a result, despite the drama in the music, there's no sense of real people in these songs, not as artists in the here and now and not as subjects in the there and then. The America of The Bloom and the Blight is strangely uninhabited, a museum diorama obscured by a Do Not Touch sign.
