personal issues such as domestic violence, suicide, abandonment, alcoholism, and references to fables of the Old West and antebellum South. The band released a 7" vinyl single, "I'm Her Man", and expanded touring to support The Throes. What the Toll Tells and Two Gallants (2005–08) Two Gallants signed a record deal with Omaha, Nebraska's independent label Saddle Creek Records in early July 2005. That same month the band began recording the followup to The Throes at San Francisco's Tiny Telephone studios. 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. The band's second album, What the Toll Tells, was released in February 2006 on Saddle Creek. 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. Two singles were released from the album, "Las Cruces Jail" and "Steady Rollin'". Overall What the Toll Tells received a "weighted average" score of 71 out of 100 on review aggregation site Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The album's storytelling did receive some harsh criticism from some critics, with Brian Howe from Pitchfork saying the music "handles history like costume jewelry" and giving the album a 4.5 out of 10, and a writer for Under the Radar said of the album, "Everything sung here is manufactured to conjure up the same bullshit sense of nostalgia that the band's James Joyce-inspired name is supposed to." 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". Two Gallants toured Europe at the start of 2006 after the album release, played the Saddle Creek SXSW showcase in March, and then toured the United States and parts of Canada throughout the spring, back to Europe for summer festivals, and another tour of the United States in the fall of that year, in total playing over 200 shows in 2006. During the fall tour the band gained music press attention for an incident at a performance in Houston, Texas, when a police officer investigating a