[4] Initially covering heavy metal bands and the exploding grunge sound of the 1990s, the two discovered blues music independent of each other when they were around eighteen.
The name Two Gallants was chosen after a short story of the same name from James Joyce's Dubliners, as both were reading the book at the time and the name "seemed obvious".
Songs on this and future albums would touch on social and personal issues such as domestic violence, suicide, abandonment, alcoholism, and references to fables of the Old West and antebellum South.
In August of that year, Two Gallants played their first shows overseas in London as well as the Reading and Leeds Festivals, and appeared at Saddle Creek's CMJ showcase at New York City's Bowery Ballroom.
What the Toll Tells was recorded in three weeks and continued to mix the punk/folk rock sound with blues, and Stephens's lyrics carried on similar themes from The Throes: domestic violence, the Old West, racism, alcoholism, and the perceived myth of the American dream.
"[15] On the other hand, Sharon O'Connell of the BBC's Collective magazine praised this aspect of the album, saying the music "brims with an almost brutal rawness and betrays the pair’s striking talent for storytelling".
[21] Two Gallants, the band's third full-length album, was released in September 2007 on Saddle Creek and debuted at number 29 on Billboard's Top Heatseeker's Chart.
[25] A writer for Alternative Press remarked that "their take on Delta blues and twisted folk is continually spot-on, going down equally well with a bad breakup or a cold beer with pals.
"[26] Amanda Petrusich of Pitchfork gave the album 6.9 out of 10, praising the album for "musically...offer[ing] the same blend of pseudo-Americana the band built its reputation on: a grainy mix of classic blues, folk, and electric guitar" but critiquing Stephens' lyrics, calling the writing "ambitious, heady, and riddled with histrionics".
After six years of constant recording and touring, Two Gallants took a hiatus starting in the summer of 2008, citing exhaustion both mentally and physically.
[5][32] The hiatus was intended to take only around a year or so while the two worked on solo material to find their own directions, but was extended to such a length due to Vogel dealing with personal issues and Stephens being injured in an auto accident while on tour for We Live on Cliffs in 2011.
[36] We Are Undone, Two Gallants' fifth studio album and second for ATO Records, was released in February 2015 and was available for live streaming in its entirety on The New York Times' website.
[38] Previously the band wrote songs and worked them out while playing shows, sometimes over the course of years, but writing and recording simultaneously was "really refreshing," according to Stephens.
[39] We Are Undone continued in the style of The Bloom and Blight, focusing on a stripped-down sound and loud/soft dynamic shifts, moving further away from the punk-inspired blues of earlier records more into rock and roll.
Last winter, after a few years of seemingly ceaseless touring, we decided to take a little break and set aside some time for other things.
[44] This shift in sound on The Bloom and the Blight and We Are Undone reflects the music the band grew up listening to, such as Nirvana, Pavement, and Operation Ivy,[43] instead of being dominated by the blues records that the two discovered in their late teens.