“Halcyon Days” is no different, nor is the rest of The Bloom And The Blight. From the juiced-up jangle of the breezy “Song Of Songs” to the delicate finger-picking of “Sunday Souvenirs,” Stephens and drummer Tyson Vogel imbue the album with the same mix of tender introspection, cracked nostalgia, and full-throttle distortion that Two Gallants made their own in the early ’00s. But unlike two-piece contemporaries such The White Stripes and The Black Keys, Two Gallants have always seemed to have an unstable relationship with their retro influences. That’s both a strength and a curse; on tracks like the bombastic “My Love Won’t Wait,” the bludgeoning riffs and beats approximate the thump of a pounding, palpitating heart—that is, when Stephens isn’t hanging back in hushed passages of sleepy, sweaty exhaustion.
The problem is, the quiet-loud formula gets overused and at times abused, such as on “Winter’s Youth,” an intricate, haunted ballad whose switch to slash-and-screech overload feels forced. Worse, though, it’s beginning to sound less like a tool and more like a crutch. Stephens isn’t always able to capture attention during his more whispery songs; the drone of “Decay” conjures dreamy atmosphere but completely fails to find a hook of any kind. But when Stephens hits his downbeat stride, such as on the piercing, straightforwardly folky “Broken Eyes,” Bloom absolutely blossoms. The good news is Two Gallants’ five-year lapse hasn’t changed the band much. The bad news is that maybe it should have.
