In The Wind

Last Charge Of The Light Horse

Independent release, 2024

http://www.lastcharge.com

REVIEW BY: Jason Warburg

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 10/04/2024

You didn’t come for diaphanous insight
You just came to shimmy and turn”

- “Slash And Burn” by Jean-Paul Vest

When last we encountered Last Charge Of The Light Horse singer-songwriter-maestro Jean-Paul Vest, he was promising that the group’s next album following 2023’s relatively spare and introspective Vestiges would be “a full-band record that rocks.”

To be sure, Last Charge’s ninth release In The Wind delivers a series of powerful full-band arrangements featuring the group’s core of Vest (lead vocals, guitars), Shawn Murray (drums and percussion), Pemberton Roach (bass, background vocals), and Bob Stander (lead and solo guitar), supplemented by guest shots by many familiar names from past Last Charge outings. But simply turning up the volume does little to alter the essential character of Last Charge’s music; it’s hyper-literate, insightful, passionate and adventurous in ways that inevitably remind of artists like Richard Thompson and James McMurtry.

The songs here, as has become typical for Last Charge, feature layer upon layer of sound, rhythm, and meaning, often requiring multiple listens to suss out their essence. Opener “Thorn” propels the listener into a waking nightmare as our narrator grapples with insomnia, struggling not to let his anxieties consume him. The arrangement is appropriately cacophonous with dirty bass, stuttering drums, stabs of guitar and sudden interjections of sonic graffiti and ghostly background vocals.

“Talk To The Hand” and “Imaginary Friend” follow with a one-two punch of socio-political anxiety. The former features eerie, rather jazzy guitar building to a brief, wild solo, with multiple voices interjecting in a radio play examining the current social climate and how surreal it often feels. The latter builds a whirlwind of sound with urgent, repeating guitar figures over pulsing, buzzy bass and a complex drum pattern, another knotty yet appealing construction. Despite the premise that the figure described in the lyrics is imaginary, certain details suggest otherwise: “No depravity too low to make the fanbase howl / He’s got the number for the hotline directly to your fears / Saves you the nuisance of consulting that thing between your ears.” The brilliant tactic of doubling the main riff with both whistling and a stylophone amplifies the sensation of a world spinning off its axis.

The one straight up four-on-the-floor rock song here is its own kind of elbow in the audience’s ribs. “Slash And Burn” may have the backbeat required to get the crowd dancing, but the lyrics are a winking exercise in self-awareness: “You didn’t come to hear some long-haired lexicographer / Empty out his word sack,” Vest declares, before adding: “And all those compositions / Of nuance, elegance, and poise / All those exotic time signatures / Well, screw that noise.” Stander puts an exclamation point on the track with another bruising, superb solo.my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

The lilting, limber “Kindred Minds” offers a tribute to a source of inspiration, reflecting on the enduring power of the written word: “You left these lessons for me to find / Floating downstream on the current of time / The right words, when I needed them most / A guiding hand from your ghost.” And then “Last Day Of The Year” eases back to a gentle shuffle with Nick Vest’s trumpet counterpointing plucked electric bass on this contemplative escapee from a late-night jazz club (“Last day of the year / No absolutions, no genie appears / To promise you that / The next one will be / Without sorrows”).

The first of two atmospheric instrumentals, “Hidden Path” showcases Gwendolyn Vest’s resonant flute-on-delay and wordless vocals over skittering drums and burbling bass, a number that’s somehow both soothing and unsettling. “Bridgeport Shanty” follows, a thrummy, swaying number essaying a troubled narrator’s ferry ride across Long Island Sound: “The cars below queue in obedient rows / Nestled in from stern to prow / While every word she ever said / Rushes like sand through the funnel of now.” It’s an indie-rock song that feels like an Edward Hopper painting.

The album’s third act brings all of the above-outlined troubles home, offering both tough sledding and a substantial payoff. First up is the title track, all coiled tension and silvery, gorgeous guitar lines as the narrator tries to help a loved one rise to meet a difficult moment: “You were born to face the wind / Sky threatening to rain any minute and / Your hair lashing around your head like / Flames writing unspeakable language.” A similar theme plays out in an even more vulnerable context on “Too Young,” a moving, shimmery poem of encouragement to a troubled younger person, accelerating into this gorgeously rendered chorus: “Take my arms and make them your home / Take my love until you feel strong / Take my joy until you find the path / To your own.”

The charged atmosphere begins to brighten with the second instrumental, “Coming Home,” again featuring Gwendolyn Vest on flute, this time in an airy duet with Jean-Paul on acoustic guitar that’s 1:59 of pure beauty. It’s the perfect appetizer for the album-closing “Jubilation,” a pumping rocker that lives up to its name, celebrating the love of its narrator’s life with so many quotable lines that I won’t even try.

In The Wind finds frontman Vest once again working in close collaboration with co-producer and mixer Jim Watts, who also contributes backing vocals, guitar, percussion, and the aforementioned stylophone. And while Murray, Roach and Stander remain the core of the band, repeat guests such as backing vocalists Pam Aronoff, Martha Trachtenberg and Tom Griffith—not to mention Nick and Gwendolyn Vest—are practically honorary members by now.

As always, Vest’s meticulously crafted lyrics deliver clear-eyed observations and sometimes-difficult truths. For one: life is rarely easy or simple, so when those moments of joy arrive, celebrate them with all you’ve got. In The Wind is the work of a songwriter of tremendous power and sensitivity, a storyteller who might not have all the answers, but has honed a gift for asking artfully drawn questions. “Diaphanous insight,” indeed.

Rating: A-

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