The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads is the debut and only full-length album from Texas rock band Lift To Experience. The album spans over an hour and a half in runtime and features noisy rock ballads and ambient soundscapes in almost equal amounts. The double LP’s biggest drawback is the fact that the length isn’t entirely justified, and that’s not just because of the 14 minutes of silence in the last track. Still, throughout the project there are many great moments and a cohesive story woven throughout the walls of guitar noise.
The album blends post rock and shoegaze elements with a deadpan delivery of a story about three Texas boys who receive word that God is coming back to enact judgement on the earth.
For better or for worse, the LP opens with the best track, “Just as Was Told”. The song takes the listener through multiple tempos, time signatures, and dynamics all very quickly. It also introduces the story and the chosen method of storytelling (which are reminiscent of the vocals on many Cake songs). Angels appear to three Texas boys to tell them that God is coming back to earth and that He’s making Texas the safe haven for humanity. Like many famous Bible heroes, our three characters are unsure why they were chosen but they wisely decide to be obedient to God even when they don’t understand quite how things are going to play out. The track ends with a characteristic haze of guitar layers and intermittent cymbal or bass drum hits. It lasts longer than one might expect but it’s appropriately glorious as an opener to an album about God coming back for the Apocalypse.
In between the mid tempo rock songs there are more ambient tracks that focus more on the words and continuing the story than building a conventional song. “Down Came the Angels” and “The Ground So Soft” are good examples of these kinds of interludes, acting as states of repose from the harder hitting tracks. The former track exemplifies post rock slightly more (it’s ethereal without being cluttered) while the latter is more like shoegaze (swirling guitar layers with a droning bass and washing cymbals). “Falling From Cloud 9” and “These are the Days” work in the context of the album as well as potentially functioning as singles that could end up on some indie rock playlists. The alternation between these kinds of songs and ambient story-driven interludes works very well at both keeping interest and at moving the story along while providing plenty of description as well. Still, one can only handle so many clouds of guitar delay.
The main issue with the album is the length. Luckily the 3rd-to-last track switches up styles for more of a country feel but the following song is back to sleepy guitars and booming drums. Additionally the seemingly uninterested vocals finally start to be more of a hindrance than a welcome addition here. The first third of the last track works as a solid closer with the triumphant repetition of “We shall be free!” amidst the song’s climactic moments before coming back down to silence. 14 minutes of silence to be specific. We then get a bonus track for the last 5 minutes or so. This bonus track could have fit much better somewhere in the middle of the LP since it is a uniquely anxiety-inducing maelstrom of noise. However, at the end it just seems like padding. It’s likely supposed to represent the world ending but unfortunately it doesn’t come across in a powerful or meaningful way in the context of the album.
Overall this album is an incredibly unique experience and does deserve a listen. It’s very ambitious and mostly succeeds in its undertakings with the main exception being the fact that the last track or two fail to effectively keep attention until the very end. Still, if a Christian shoegaze-post rock album is what you’ve been looking for recently, then it literally does not get better than this. Rating: 8.7/10
- Kendrick Haskins