Last Charge Of The Light Horse has always had a fluid nature. A vehicle for the potent songs of Jean-Paul Vest, the band has continued to evolve as circumstances and the music has required, in recent years solidifying around the quartet of Vest (lead vocals & guitar), Pemberton Roach (bass), Shawn Murray (drums), and Bob Stander (guitar), frequently complemented and supplemented in the studio by a range of guests.<\/p>\n
For the newest Last Charge EP Vestiges<\/i>, though, Vest acknowledges that \u201cThe title is a nod to the idea that this set of songs drifts a bit more than usual towards \u2018solo project\u2019 territory.\u201d With Roach \u201coff traveling the world,\u201d Vest has brought in guests both familiar and new to add flavor and texture to another round of his intoxicating tunes.<\/p>\n
Each of this quintet of songs is its own tasty morsel, full of rich textures and flavors, but each also feels like it\u2019s grounded in a singular concept. <\/p>\n
Kickoff cut \u201cWhat Befalls Us\u201d opens with a long, evocative intro featuring Vest\u2019s guitar and Keenan Zach\u2019s bowed double bass in what feels like a late-night meditation. That sense is only enhanced when Vest\u2019s vocals arrive 80 seconds in to help the listener consider the vagaries of fate and the nature of identity (\u201ca line from Levertov, if I recall: \/ \u2018Are we what we think we are \/ or are we what befalls us?\u2019\u201d). <\/p>\n
\u201cAbsentia\u201d\u2014a song-poem about longing\u2014features Vest\u2019s own rhythmic bass playing, rendered extra deep and resonant by co-producer and mixer Jim Watts under what feels like almost a spoken-word performance. \u201cI will marinate in this hope while I can,\u201d Vest sings as Beth Goodfellow\u2019s percussion pushes the song along, with Watts adding new layers as they go. In the end, though, Vest reminds us that longing has its charms: \u201cPlease don\u2019t mistake my delay for uncertainty \/ or a clumsy game of playing hard to get \/ you don\u2019t scroll past the movie for the credits \/ I\u2019m not done savoring the anticipation yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPerspective Lies\u201d is the one track here that feels like a band production, anchored by Murray\u2019s shuffling, stutter-stepping drums. Here the theme is wisdom, laid down in lines like \u201cYou are not the sum of your mistakes\u201d and capped with this chorus: \u201cBut perspective lies \/ from every angle \/ we all seek the ley lines \/ when the truth is tangled.\u201d Matt Darriau\u2019s sax adds a soaring, jazzy counterpoint to the surging\/falling Murray-Jon Flaugher rhythm section, with Watts and his partner Pam Aronoff contributing background vocals. <\/p>\n
The entirely solo \u201cAsked And Answered\u201d presents Vest\u2019s interior monologue as he mocks a Negative Nancy with a condescending streak. \u201cA little more scorn if you can \/ straight into the camera \/ look down your nose \/ raise those eyebrows \/ really sell it.\u201d It\u2019s a verbal bullseye of a character sketch made that much more powerful by a stark arrangement of just bass and vocals.<\/p>\n
Closer \u201cAmid The Clamor\u201d personifies its title with bright acoustic guitar (Vest) and burbling bass (guest Bakithi Kumalo ) over clattering, textured percussion (Murray and Watts). The rhythmic layers shift and morph through the song under a lyric about those peaceful moments when you receive \u201cA little calm amid the clamor \/ open sky beneath the moon,\u201d with Gwen Vest\u2019s background vocals providing a complementary glow. In the second half, Nick Vest\u2019s trumpet takes a punchy, doubled solo that outlasts the rest of the fading-out instrumentation at the close.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know about you, but for me solitude fosters contemplation, and Vestiges<\/i> feels like an extension of a moment like that. It\u2019s a collection that\u2019s both brooding and witty, serious and light, rich with insight and layers of meaning, the poetry of the lyrics perfectly paired with spare and evocative arrangements. Vest promises that the next set from Last Charge will be a full-band outing that rocks; for now, though, we can bathe in the considerable and particular light cast by these five luminous tunes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7666],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46681","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-last-charge-of-the-light-horse","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46681"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}