Lift to Experience frontman Josh T. Pearson has often talked about the influence of having a Pentecostal preacher for a dad. His childhood was steeped in religion, the devil, and the King James Bible, all of which laid the foundation for The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads, an ambitious concept album about the apocalypse in which Pearson and his bandmates are chosen by God to lead the faithful into the Promised Land — better known as Texas.

On paper, it’s ridiculous, even blasphemous. But then you hear the sincerity in Pearson’s haunting croon and the intensity of the band’s psych-rock whirlwind, and it comes together in a pre-ordained fashion. On “Falling From Cloud 9” and “With Crippled Wings,” Pearson’s guitar moves between delicately picked melodies and overdriven walls of sound loud enough to make Kevin Shields cover his ears while bassist Josh “The Bear” Browning and drummer Andy “The Boy” Young lay down a thunderous rhythm section.

Pearson’s lyrics are poetic, thoughtful, and awash with apocalyptic imagery as he chronicles a journey through “a crippled, angry, new America.” One minute he’s crying out “If you reach the Holy City/It won’t be without a fight” or making a record deal with the Almighty. The next, he’s imploring the faithful to take up arms for their perilous journey (“Tell your mother/You won’t be home for Christmas this year/Say you’re headed south for the Promised Land/And with gun in hand”) and drawing inspiration from Walt Whitman, St. Augustine, and the Good Book itself (“Behold I show you a mystery/We shall not all sleep/We shall all be changed/The crippled, deaf, and weak”).

I’m not sure if I can fully explain the hold that The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads held on my friends and I in the early ’00s, but suffice to say, we were obsessed with the album, and the band behind it. And I spent many, many late nights drawing comfort from its apocalyptic maelstrom. Thus, when I had a chance to book Lift to Experience for a 2002 show in Omaha along with their labelmates Devics, I leapt at it.

The show did not disappoint in the slightest; both bands delivered amazing performances, with Lift to Experience handily living up to their mythology. (My fondest memory of the show: Browning asking me for some pot as soon as he entered the venue. My second fondest: Pearson expressing relief when I told him they should play as loud as they want, a statement lent legitimacy by my My Bloody Valentine shirt.) Afterwards, both bands crashed at my house, where we proceeded to stay up way past midnight with the help of a bottle of Jack Daniels — a dream come true for me and my roommates.