Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel started gigging around San Francisco as Two Gallants in 2002. Early the following year, without an agent or website, they booked shows at various clubs, house parties and warehouses with the help of friends and the internet. Touring in 4 to 6 week spurts, the band sold t–shirts and 2 homemade recordings to survive. After recording their debut, The Throes, for Alive Records, they found a proper booking agent and have been on the road ever since.

In a style that allows for little flourish and where every element has stark purpose, two voices, guitars, drums, and a harmonica make up the sound of Two Gallants. Overdubs and guest musicians are kept to an effective minimum. With that lean arrangement, the band reveals a thousand tales, a dizzying timelessness, and a potent range of emotions. Two Gallants rambled thousands of miles, across counties and continents, to make What the Toll Tells. Their sophomore album swells with the kind of world–weary storytelling and musical dexterity that arises from travel, loss, and triumph coupled with an unusual affection for literature and legend. But it all starts and ends with their home, the city streets of San Francisco.