Simplicity is key for the lo-fi blend of folk/indie rock from San Francisco duo Two Gallants. Taking their name from a James Joyce short story, Adam Stephens (vocals/guitar/harmonica) and Tyson Vogel (drums/vocals) have been playing together as Two Gallants since 2002, sounding more like a dirty Southern folk act than their Bay Area origins may initially suggest. They released their debut, The Throes, in 2004 on Alive Records and followed up two years later with What the Toll Tells on Saddle Creek. In June 2007 the Gallants prepped their audience for their upcoming self-titled full-length (issued in September) with a five-song EP, The Scenery of Farewell, their first release since an October 2006 incident at a Houston club that led to Vogel spending a night in jail and an uprising in the indie music community.

When an intensely, pondering poet, draped in a broken-in hollow body guitar and spewing red and raw vocals, as if choking on the sun-baked mud and dust of his subject matter, teams up with a hold no cheap shots (at least behind the kit) kind of drummer-himself awash in sweat, fighting off the rush of blood from his own battered fingers-the live result can only be something that tip toes on the overwhelming. Such is the case with Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel.

Though the two childhood friends hail from San Francisco, Two Gallants' performance at the Blender Theater at the Gramercy would have one believe they were bred on an utterly authentic, rural ruggedness. I suppose it's due to the way their agrarian blend of folk, blues, country, rock, and punk conjure up apocalyptic dust bowl images-think The Grapes of Wrath if you have to. And if you don't rely on such a picture, just know that such intense, tom tom driven folk thrash can set Midwestern hay bails ablaze all the way from New York City.

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