Wet Nuns - Birthdays - Tuesday 5th March 2013

A very quick review of Wet Nuns' gig at Birthdays in Dalston Kingsland. Also put on Grapevine's website.

Tuesday is the new Friday (Well, at least it was this week), because I went to a gig to see a fairly new band that seem to be gaining a fair bit of popularity, Wet Nuns, supported by two low and heavy metal bands, which I will go ahead and review first.

Limb were first up. Dirty, low, doom laden riffs vibrated the bones of those in the little underground venue. Vocally more what I would describe as ‘death metal’, lots of grumbling and low screams that mirrored the incredibly low notes played by the guitarist and bass. Not a single high note was struck as Limb continued to drive forward with dread laden bass lines and distortion. They reminded me of the heavier, grungier side of ‘Down’ with plenty of distortion. Whether the distortion was due to a pedal effect or overloaded speakers, I can’t be sure, but the speakers were still working when the next band stepped up so they must have been pretty solid.

Throne are a band I have seen before (the last time I saw Wet Nuns). I didn’t really see much of them the first time around so I was interested to get a full whack of Throne to the ears. Early Black Sabbath must be an influence, that brilliant early metal sound really sounded good in the tiny Birthdays basement. It was like metal distilled to its true origins, brilliant stuff with clean bass-lines and a great feel.

Finally we got some Wet Nuns. I love this band, their EP was released a little while ago (got the vinyl pre order, because, why not?) and since then I have been really looking forward to this gig. I last saw them when they supported Turbowolf at The Relentless Garage last year, but I was stood near the bar then, so this time I promised myself I’d get a bit closer. I was still near the bar, but downstairs at Birthdays the only place you can really stand is ‘near the bar’ due to the cosy size, but the low ceiling helped funnel plenty of noise , which Wet Nuns used to full effect. Bearing in mind they are a two piece they still blasted their flavour of head banging ‘blues punk’ towards our faces. The duo had a great crowd for them tonight and were they up for it with some funny banter between tracks and quite a bit of crowd surfing, but my personal highlight was the song that made me like them in the first place, Laura, I just really like that song. The crowd surfing continued and in the end the guitarist cemented the maniacal style the band possesses by doing a bit of surfing himself. Plenty of sore necks the next day I’m sure, but it think the whole crowd would agree it was well worth it