Blasting twin barrels of Americana noire and southern-gothic songwriting, India Ramey fires on all cylinders with her national debut, Snake Handler.

Pentecostal churches, broken households, crooked family trees, forgotten pockets of the Deep South, and domestic violence all fill the album’s 10 songs, whose autobiographical lyrics pull from Ramey’s experience as a young girl in rural Georgia. Intensely personal and sharply written, Snake Handler shines a light on the darkness of Ramey’s past, driving out any lingering demons — or snakes, if you will — along the way.

Inspired by the warm sonics of Jason Isbell’s Southeastern and the big-voiced bombast of Neko Case’s Furnace Room Lullabies, Snake Handler was recorded in six days with producer Mark Petaccia — Southeastern‘s sound engineer, coincidentally — and members of Ramey’s road band. Ringing guitars, violin, atmospheric organ, and percussive train beats all swirl together, leaving room for Ramey’s voice — an instrument punctuated by the light drawl of her hometown and the quick tremolo of her vibrato — to swoon, swagger, and sparkle. It’s a voice she began developing as a child in Rome, Georgia, singing made-up songs into her electric hair curler while her parents fought just outside her bedroom door. The family home was a violent one, the product of an addicted father who flew into an abusive rage whenever his vices took control. Despite being the youngest of three children, Ramey grew up quickly, robbed of a typical childhood by her unpredictable home life. She recollects those early years in “The Baby,” skewers her no-good dad in “Devil’s Blood,” tells her mother’s story in “Rome to Paris,” and paints a less-than-inviting picture of her hometown in “Devil’s Den.”

Although her childhood lacked peace, it was filled with music, thanks to a charismatic grandfather who, in his younger years, sang in an Alabama-based gospel quartet. Known regionally for his talents, he turned down an offer to become a permanent performer on The Lawrence Welk Show when his wife refused to move to the big city. Instead, he remained in his hometown of Sand Mountain, Alabama — notorious for its number of snake-handling churches — and worked as piano tuner, decorating his own home with cast-off pianos and other instruments. It was during trips to that house, with her mother playing autoharp and her grandaddy playing acoustic guitar, that Ramey grew up singing.