Almost every group I’ve ever played in has put the bass player on such a pedestal, saying that you can’t play and have a band without a bass player. True, some genres of music are hard to function without a bass player.

Though, a small duo from Vancouver, British Columbia called Japandroids isn’t strategizing their garage rock sound by including a bassist. Not looking back, they’re playing with what they got instead: an electric guitar and set of drums.

Formed in 2006 when Prose and King met each other at the University of Victoria. Japandroids debuted with their 2009 album Post-Nothing. They received great acclaim and widespread popularity when Rolling Stone named their 2012 album, Celebration Rock, as “one of the top ten coolest summer albums of all time”. Between 2009 and 2013, Japandroids has played 500 shows in 44 countries without the need of a bassist; because their sound with just guitar and drums alone is one of the purest forms of punk rock out there today.

However, Death From Above 1979, a duo from Toronto, Ontario–equally militant as Japandroids–has omitted guitar from their noise rock/punk-dance sound and is interestingly just the fraternal twin of Japandroids with just electric bass and drums.

Debuting with their first full-length album You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine in 2004, Grainger and Keeler met supposedly at a Sonic Youth concert. The reason for their band name is due to the fact that Grainger was born in 1979 and has argued that 1979 was the last year of the last cool decade. They have released many singles and EPs since then. Keeler is involved with many other groups, including the electronica group MSTRKRFT. In 2006, Death From Above 1979 broke up as a result of both of the members wanting to pursue other musical projects. Reuniting in 2014, their second album, The Physical World, was released last September.

My favorite song, “Romantic Rights”, has such a raw and pulling intro.

Both Japandroids and Death From Above 1979 are held as some of the greatest music duos of all time. Both have their own interesting fusion and sound when they omit instruments; not to mention they both include heavy, pounding drums. So which is really better? At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how bands twist and shift their music when really it’s the level of musicianship that really matters.

Duos worth listening to: The White Stripes, The Black Keys, Daft Punk, Tegan & Sara, Matt & Kim, Outkast, Suicide, Idiot Pilot, The Righteous Brothers and Simon & Garfunkel