Wet Nuns

http://news.qthemusic.com/2012/07/playlist_-_2012_sheffield_favo.html - Q Music

Forget Louisiana and Mississippi – if tonight is anything to go by, Yorkshire is the real home of the blues in 2012. Where else can you go to hear three of the noisiest blues acts around, if not the upstairs of a pub just outside Leeds city centre? At The Packhorse you’ll find Sheffield sibling duo Drenge in unrepentant form, with Eoin Loveless’ guitar sounding like a rusty chainsaw tearing down a house made of sandpaper. He’s only 21, but when he sings he’s drawling like he’s taken all the same drugs as The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster and sold his soul to Jon Spencer while cheating Robert Johnson at cards.

Birmingham’s John J Presley has a more varied bluesman’s palette. His set spans murderous ballads in the vein of Nick Cave arm-wrestling the devil and the satanic theatrics of ‘Samson’ – a song so unholy sounding it could set a church ablaze with just a few notes. So wrapped up in his bluesman’s person is Presley that at times his performance is over the top at the expense of the songwriting, but his guitar wails with so much anguish it’s easy to get wrapped up in the drama of it.

Headliners Wet Nuns don’t take themselves so seriously. They almost sound like The Black Keys, if Dan and Pat had developed a passionate desire to be Pantera instead of to write pop songs. Drummer Alexis Gotts growls his vocals, guitarist Robert Graham barks, then between songs tells a story about getting the shits in Leeds train station with the self-deprecating candour of a hard rock Alan Bennett. Gags aside, every song in Wet Nuns’ set hits you like a dead arm, though it’s ‘Heaven’s Below’ that busts your nose with its blood-stained riffs. Here in Leeds tonight, the blues has a new home. - The Fly

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150983376480567&set=pb.472598255566.-2207520000.1350661323&type=1&theater - NME

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151111873945567&set=pb.472598255566.-2207520000.1350661323&type=1&theater - NME

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151307496330567&set=pb.472598255566.-2207520000.1350661323&type=1&theater - NME

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151377878420567&set=pb.472598255566.-2207520000.1350661323&type=1&theater - NME

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151406007595567&set=pb.472598255566.-2207520000.1350661323&type=1&theater - NME

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152032417700567&set=pb.472598255566.-2207520000.1350661323&type=1&theater - NME

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=22045023&l=cde231a4e4&id=472598255566 - Total Guitar Magazine

The problem with a lot of music today is that there isn't any dirt in the sound.

Everything sounds too clean, too precise. Hell, even the musicians who use vintage gear - naming no names - are so slavishly devoted to the past that they would never dare to really fuck anything up.

Wet Nuns though, have plenty of dirt. The Leeds band erupted onto the national consciousness earlier this year, with their sweat-drippin', knee-tremblin' live performances finally gaining wider acceptance.

Just two people - guitar and drums are all you need in the gospel of Wet Nuns - the pair drive out a demented, corrosive kind of anarchic blues punk. It's the sort of thing that has your neighbours pounding on the door, begging you to turn the noise off.

Two singles swiftly followed. ‘Heaven’s Below’ and ‘Throttle’ were tiny pockets of dynamite, turning brevity into a blunt weapon.

New single 'Why You So Cold' follows suit. The sort of thing Jack White has nightmares about, this is nasty, filthy blues with the mistakes left hanging out for all to see.

Out on September 10th, 'Why You So Cold' will be available on limited edition seven inch vinyl and as a digital download.

ClashMusic has the first play. Listen to it now... - Clash Music

There’s a small area of South Yorkshire that for this Sheffield guitar and drum duo will forever be a blood stained Arizona desert. Their beer brawl dust rock is pounded by snarly riffs and dirty witchcraft into sirloin slabs of devil rock with crystals of arthouse-satanic menace. By Taking the Sabbath dirge of Kyuss with a pinch of the Tarantino energy of the Jim Jones Revue they created obtuse death blues with is more Black Mirror than Black Keys. Being a duo often signifies a lack of mates to play with, but Wet Nun have the Arctic Monkeys as buddies and their crazy live shows are earning a devoted, cult like, following. - The Independant

http://www.nme.com/news/arctic-monkeys/60300 - NME

"Blues-punk (not blue-spunk) red-necks from deepest south'n'wildest West Yorkshire. Contact our manager for gigs/interviews/sex…"

And so go's Wet Nuns' biog bit on their Facebook page. They might be a joke, actually, and fittingly they're a bit like what would happen if The Datsuns and QOTSA had done the dirty together in the early noughties, or maybe a much, much, MUCH cooler Black Keys with Arctic Monkeys' sense of humour.

Which is of course apt, seeing as Monkey drummer Matt Helders has remixed a couple of their numbers recently.

Away from Helders, we'll alert you to their new single proper though, which totally rocks. It's got a brilliant name too - 'Heavens Below':


And then there's this fun, if non-eventful, 'cockumentary' they filmed of themselves last year at Tramlines festival. The bit with the dude playing the harmonica with his nose is particularly noteworthy: - NME

They're really entertaining to watch live, loads of fun. I went to see them last week actually, when they launched their single at the Bungalows & Bears pub here and it was pretty heaving. Mind you, when they played at Tramlines Festival it was rammed too, people were crowdsurfing and everything. And then I also saw them at a mates birthday party - they were brilliant there. They'll play anywhere, basically. They're dead exciting. - NME