Last of the Country Gentlemen

Ten years ago the Denton Texas three piece band Lift to Experience released their debut double album called ‘The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads.’ A concept album about the end of the world where Texas is the promised land set against a swirling psychedelic wall of sound.. It could even be called Christian-space-rock. If you read the songs titles after one another they read like chapters from the scripture.

Disk One titled Texas reads:
Just as Was Told, Down Came the Angels, Falling from Cloud 9, With Crippled Wings. Waiting to Hit, The Ground So Soft.

Disc Two titled Jerusalem reads:
These Are the Days, When We Shall Touch, Down with the Prophets, To Guard and to Guide You, Into the Storm.

But as the bands singer/guitarist and songwriter Josh T Pearson mentioned in an interview when asked about the records Christian leanings he noted that you can admire Michelangelo’s David as a great piece of art without having to believe in angels. I knew on the second listen that it would be an album I will never tire of.

If they sounded apocalyptic on record then they were even more so live. The first time I saw them was at The Garage in Highbury supporting Cat Power. I’d never heard and still haven’t heard a band play so loud. After they left the stage in a barrage of feedback Cat Power came on with an acoustic guitar and quietly strummed and mumbled while hiding behind her hair. I didn’t stay for much longer and left with my ears buzzing. To say that the main act was blown away by the support act is a massive understatement.

Lift To Experience soon split up and Pearson retreated to deepest darkest Texas. A couple of years later I saw him play a spellbinding solo acoustic gig above a pub next to Spitalfields Market. He played a bunch of new songs under the heading Angels Vs Devils. Over the years these songs would mutate to various degrees of success and have been documented in bootlegs available to buy at shows, such as Live In Paris, and one that I own called To Hull And Back (yes it’s a live album from the oh so great Yorkshire city of Hull). The only proper release was a spooky cover of the Hank Williams song ‘I’m So Lonesome I could Cry’ on a split single with The Dirty Three.

But next month is when Josh T Pearson finally puts out his debut solo album on Mute Records called Last of the Country Gentlemen.

Its not like the wall of sound that Lift To Experience played, its not like the Angels Vs Devil songs. It’s a beautiful, sparse, haunting, personal record. listening to it all the way through took something out of me, but with songs like ‘Woman When I’ve Raised Hell’ and ‘Sorry With A Song’ its well worth it.
I just hope the next record doesn’t take so long.


Josh T Pearson: Sorry With A Song (Alt Version)mp3