Sublime Frequencies has travelled the globe in pursuit of worthy sonic discoveries, but until the arrival of West Virginia Snake Handler Revival “They Shall Take Up Serpents,” the set available now on LP and digital wherever adventurous music is sold, the label had never focused an entire release on a locale from inside the borders of the United States. As the title indicates, West Virginia is the destination, specifically Appalachia, for a deep dive into the fervor of a group known simply as the Pastor Chris Congregation. It’s one of the wildest and totally unexpected releases of 2025. The vinyl comes with a 13-minute bonus track.
The reality is that many will listen to West Virginia Snake Handler Revival with the intention to laugh and point. When people let it all hang out, a reliable reaction is derision. Soaking up these excerpts as captured by Grammy-award-winning record producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Zomba Prison Project, Peter Case), if nothing else, illuminates the difference between sincere Christian belief in its extremity and those who profess religious conviction but are in reality frauds.
But this album delivers much more, capturing the last snake-handling church in the only state that still legally tolerates the practice prior to the likelihood (if not inevitability) of the tradition’s disappearance. It offers excerpts of church service preaching ascending into the realms of pure mania. In Sublime Frequencies’ notes, Brennan details a snakebite that can be heard in the track “Don’t Worry It’s Just a Snakebite (What Has Happened to This Generation?).”
The whole of West Virginia Snake Handler Revival is fascinating, and most of all for the sheer power of the music. Those preaching excerpts are infused with the raw musicality that can be the byproduct of sheer conviction and the evaporation of inhibition. The intensity is galvanizing, formidable, at times uncomfortable, even from the distance this recording provides. One can only imagine what it was like for Brennan up close as he tended to his duties as an audio documentarian.
In terms of a band going deep and then going deeper, this recording is a jaw-dropper. Mississippi Fred McDowell once stated that he did not “play no rock & roll,” but the Pastor Chris Congregation professes that rock & roll is God’s music that was stolen by Satan and that they are fighting to take it back.
A curious notion, perhaps, as laid out on the page, but then one hears some of the most blistering rockabilly ever recorded, combined with driving repetition reminiscent of the Mississippi Hill Blues, as personified by the late RL Burnside. The unrelenting nature of the playing acquires the quality of trance music as heard in Africa. One track even sounds like The Velvet Underground. As the record plays, it becomes apparent how fortunate we are that Brennan successfully documented it.
It’s stated that West Virginia Snake Handler Revival was recorded 100% live with no overdubs, which is striking, as a few spots sound looped and there’s a load of echo at times. But no doubt, the statement is true. Mostly, the music just defies the safety of convention as it reaches for the ineffable. It’s got to be heard to be believed.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
