On Alabama Astronaut, Alabama songwriter Abe Partridge and podcast producer Ferrill Gibbs are telling a spell-binding story about the deadly practice of preachers and serpent handling, but the show is about music, and the search for the never-before heard songs of the Appalachians, which are as wild and unchained as the handling of snakes themselves. The storytelling here follows no playbook. It’s packed with the history, science, philosophy, and religion of serpent handling, plus travel, interviews, and audio of serpent handling services that seems so intimate it’s like we shouldn’t be allowed to hear it. It’s Abe’s journey to better understand the music and the people and places it came from, covering a taboo subject (Abe does not judge these believers) with a story that will surprise you every minute and some music (maybe the most punk rock music of all time) that has never been heard before. It’s not about religion, but about the services that birthed this genre and the belief it springs from, and how it was passed down church to church over the years, documented by the people making the music in the purest form.