WYRR, July 2006

Bands You Should Know – Last Charge of the Light Horse

We can't say enough good things about this group. In a sea of boring college/alt rock drivel, this trio really stands out. Their latest, Getaway Car, has songs that will breathe hope into even the most jaded alt rock fans. Worth a listen!

THE DAILY VAULT, Interview January 2006, Jason Warburg

FM, June 2, 2006, Diane E. Amov

Ah, the business of indie rock.

You put out your own CD. You tour only as far as your vintage van and limited funds will take you. Your unapologetically American, straight-ahead rock accompanies dark, literate, emotionally raw lyrics. And when some hipster newspaper critic allows that he likes you, he compares you to Cream because you're a three-piece band with an old guy. Even though it's couched in a highly favorable review, this comparison does you no favors, because your 20- and 30-something target audience would rather swear off Internet porn for a month than listen to something their parents might dig.

I'm hoping that New Yorkers in particular are reading this, because local trio, Last Charge of the Light Horse, deserve a fairer shake.

Their controlled cacophony recalls James McMurtry, Steve Earle, Uncle Tupelo, and Rank & File (at least in this track). But Last Charge of the Light Horse are much more than the sum of their parts. Every member of the band pulls his weight and then some to put down a driving, brawny sound. Father/son rhythm section, A.J. (bass) and Artie (drums) Riegger provide the stormy hand-in-glove underpinning for the panoramic guitars, story-songs, and alt-country vocals of Jean-Paul Vest, and there's not a bad track on the album.

And not a single one of them sounds like Cream.

NEWSDAY, February 9, 2006, Rafer Guzman

Last Charge straight ahead

Straight-ahead rock doesn't find its way into this column very often, and there are a couple of reasons. Most of it just rehashes the sounds of bygone decades, and it's easy to overlook when so many young bands are experimenting with more up-to-date genres such as punk and emo. That doesn't leave much room for all the singer-songwriters and traditional-minded rock groups out there.

But here's room for one: Last Charge of the Light Horse, a basic trio led by veteran singer-guitarist Jean-Paul Vest and rounded out by drummer Artie Riegger and bassist A.J Riegger (his son). The Coram-based band may have a highfalutin name, but it isn't trying to do anything fancy. Instead, it just creates and plays good music.

A warning: Last Charge's latest disc, "Getaway Car," isn't upbeat. It starts out angry, with the rolling drums and powerful bass of "Cartwheeling." Vest sings bitterly: "Maybe it's coincidence/My boy fell down the stairs/The same day they dropped our jobs to boost the market share." The mood lifts on "Here We Go Again," but the downbeat lyrics contradict the jaunty melody.

A few tracks in, the clouds really begin to gather. "Miracle" has an ominous drone beneath the chords; "Getaway Car" feels wind-blown and dusty. The five-minute "Au Clair" ends with a long, wordless reverie: Vest lets his guitar do the pondering while the rhythm section rustles quietly behind him.

Vest's somewhat fragile voice can't quite conquer every song; he has the reedy tone of a folkie, rather than a rocker.

But at other times (as on "Au Clair") this fragility serves him well.

Overall, "Getaway Car" is a rare disc that creates something original out of the traditional.

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

THE DAILY VAULT, December 2005, Jason Warburg

"Maybe it's coincidence/ My boy fell down the stairs/ The same day they dropped our jobs/ To boost the market shares/ Lucky nothing's broken/ Just a hell of a scare/ We're cartwheeling down/ Through the atmosphere/ Spinning through the air"
-- "Cartwheeling"

So opens my favorite independent release of 2005. Yes, that's right, just four weeks after I called Danelia Cotton's absolutely terrific Small White Town "the indie album of the year," I'm calling a do-over. Getaway Car is simply too good to be denied.

Last Charge Of The Light Horse conquers its unwieldy name with this brilliant, passionate roots-rock tour de force. You may remember Last Charge's guitarist/singer/songwriter Jean-Paul Vest from his previous incarnation as Blue Sandcastle; this time out he's backed by father-son duo A.J. Riegger and Artie Riegger on bass, drums and background vocals.

The above-quoted "Cartwheeling" opens the album with a drum pattern that rumbles like thunder as stormclouds surround the narrator, with guitar, bass and background vocals barreling in right after to send this track into the emotional stratosphere. By the time the narrator goes out to "search my empty mailbox / for a blessing in disguise," the arrow has flown straight from Bruce Springsteen's seminal Darkness On The Edge Of Town to this disc (a comparison I don't make lightly).

 A little later, in "Miracle," the weather takes a turn for the better as love appears, in spectacular fashion: "It was like a cloudburst, like rain / all I ever wanted… and the less you said, the more it meant to me." Late in the song, the bass drops out, leaving Vest singing "You were so good / I just can't believe it" like an exaltation, with the drums rat-tat-tatting scattato underneath and the Rieggers' chorused background vocals rising over the top, nailing that magic nexus between love song and devotional hymn.

 Next up is the title track, a truly remarkable entry in the time-honored genre of love as a troubled soul's redemption. "You give my lightning / a path to ground," goes the verse, leading into a keening chorus that Vest sings, in his reedy but deceptively strong voice, with utter conviction: "You are my escape / My getaway car / My soul and my strength / You are." Screw the Grammies -- if there was any justice, this would compete for song of the year.

 This album never lets up; if anything, the songs grow deeper and stronger as you move into its second act. "Au Clair" is a gentle plea with alt-county overtones; "The King Is Dead" follows with perfect contrast, a big, beefy blast of dark-edged rock and roll, as well as a thematic twin to "Cartwheeling" ("Cleaned your desk out / took your name down off the door… the music stopped / And every seat was spoken for"). "In the Balance" is an electric, propulsive rocker about reaching a critical point in a tense relationship: "I'm just a step and a half / to the good side / of willing to live and let live."

 Getaway Car finishes with a trio of gems. "Wonderful" (not the Everclear song) is a ballad of slumbering power, full of hard-won wisdom that rises and falls like the tide. "Circles" is a thrumming meditation, a character sketch with the depth and texture of good fiction, full of rich lines like "a strand of cool air / escapes out from under / the big, still heat of August / that winks and rights itself / like a candle flame disturbed." Putting a gorgeous, epic finish on the proceedings is "Come And See," in which the laid-back confidence of Vest's vocals meshes with his plain-spoken poetry to create an unpretentious majesty.

 If Springsteen was less self-conscious, if Dylan was more grounded, if Mellencamp was more of a poet, or Hiatt less of a joker, one of them might have written an album like this one, a set of beautifully crafted songs about love and work and passion and loss that grows richer and more resonant with every listen. There's a word for this sort of thing: masterpiece.

 RATING: A

COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, December 2005, Jeffrey St. Clair
Last Charge of the Light Horse -- Getaway Car
Energetic and subversive rock with literate lyrics reporting from the ruins of the Bush economy by a new Long Island band with Texas roots. If the Labor Movement in this country had a lick of sense, it would make a video of "Cartwheeling" and splash it before the nation during halftime of the Super Bowl, before people nod off during the Stones' geriatric set. Last Charge is propelled by a rumbling father-and-son rhythm section and the speed-demon lead guitar of Jean-Paul Vest, which just might remind you of the late Freddie King.

GOOD TIMES, February 2006, Syl Nathan

Hey, Mr. A&R man, striving to find the next Carrie Underwood or Bo Bice or whatever–there are artists out there with something to say and an original way to express it. Last Charge of the Light Horse certainly qualify.

This area three-piece – their next scheduled show is at The Hairy Lemon in Selden on Friday, February 10 – consists of vocalist and guitarist Jean-Paul Vest, bassist A.J. Riegger and drummer Artie Riegger. This beautifully packaged, 12-track introduction to these musicians is about as well thought-out a local album that has been offered for review here in many a month.

There are so many introspective, tightly-performed songs here that it is hard not to want to lay down the plaudits a bit too thickly. But any album with the lover's plea "Now You Know," the Bob Dylan-ish "The Second Time Around," or the opener "Cartwheeling" is tempting to want to praise to the high heavens.

The overall sound here is what some are calling "emo," but the influences here are veiled so well that the overall sound is completely original and riveting. Once again, the team at Vu Du Studios has produced a debut that sounds wholly major league; kudos to Bob Stander, who helmed the project in every facet of the recording.

Last Charge of the Light Horse has done the near impossible here; coming out of nowhere, this act and this record are ready to go national. Chalk up another big score for Long Island's burgeoning rock scene.