Venom (Awesome Snakes album)

Holoien and Henry began The Awesome Snakes as a way to ease the pressure of the Soviettes' increasing success by making what Henry described as a "jokey" and "free and loose" set of punk songs, spiced with audio samples from Henry's collection of odd self-help and how-to tapes.[3]

The instrumentation is deliberately simple, just Holoien on bass and Henry on drums, with the bass played through a Fender Blues Deville amplifier on high distortion.[4][5] The lyrics are also highly focused;[6][7] A.V. Club writer Christopher Bahn noted that the song topics revolve around "two subjects: snakes and/or things that are awesome."[8]

Venom was released July 17, 2006, on Wisconsin record label Crustacean Records.[9][1] A significant step forward in production from their 2004 self-titled, cassette-only debut, Venom featured fifteen tracks recorded in much higher fidelity by their friend Ross and mastered by Dave Gardener, and features a guest appearance by Twin Cities MC P.O.S.[3][10]

On October 15, 2021, Venom was re-released on vinyl by Stand Up! Records, with four songs from the band's 2009 digital EP Snake Cake included as bonus tracks.[7][11][12]

Venom enjoyed great critical success in the band's home state of Minnesota, being named one of the best albums of 2006 in the Star Tribune's annual Twin Cities Critics Tally[13] and also making the best-of lists for The A.V. Club's Twin Cities edition[14] and Pulse.[15]

Andrea Swensson of City Pages said "they play with a seriousness that sharply contrasts the silly nature of their music."[16] Stephanie Soucheray, writing for Sliver Magazine, said "Venom may be self-referential, vulgar, goofy and weird. But it is never pretentious. The album is the sound of people having fun, and people being honest about their musical intentions."[3] Tim Thompson of Wisconsin's "Local Sounds Magazine" praised Venom's "huge, manic, underground sound ... delivering an almost disembodied psychedelic freak-out in the middle of a garage-punk record."[17]

The album also received critical praise from several national publications, including Alternative Press, which called it "lo-fi, furious, primal garage-rock voodoo";[18] Maximumrocknroll, which called it "smart-arsed, snotty, arty and funny;"[19] and Punk Planet, which called it "a fuzzed up and confrontationally comedic dose of garage bangers and pogo punk punishers."[20] Punk zine Razorcake praised two early demos, 2006's The Stupid Demo and The Cheap-Ass Cassette Demo, calling them "low-fi garage punk that is poppy yet very psychedelic in a go-go kid way."[21][6] The publication was less impressed with Venom itself, saying: "Overall, this seems like a joke band that must be really funny for the people who made it, but for the rest of us it's worth listening to maybe once at the most."[22]

Reviewing the 2021 re-release, Roctober Magazine said "This reissue of an early 2000s Midwestern ridiculous riff rock relic proves that nothing is as timeless as lo fi, stripped down, absurdist snake songs."[7]

The song "I Want a Snake" is featured in the Electronic Arts skateboarding video game Skate 2.[23]

• Awesome Snakes on Facebook
• Awesome Snakes – Venom at AllMusic
• Awesome Snakes – Venom at Discogs
• Awesome Snakes at Crustacean Records website
• Awesome Snakes at Stand Up! Records website