Deep South Yorkshire’s Wet Nuns are hot tips for 2012 according to both Thrash Hits and The NME. Fresh from a one-man audience in Southampton, the ‘Blues-Punkers’ roll into Leicester with two well established Leicester bands in support.

First up were Thee Ludds, bringing their Garage Pop-Rock to the smattering of folk hovering nervously between the bar and stage area. The four-piece are by far the most ‘pop’ band on the bill. Vocalist Dan Kelly juggles both the singing and the combo organ whilst cooking under the Soundhouse’s lights expertly, and the band makes a tidy old racket to get things kicked off.

Diet Pills are a different kettle of fish all together. Their crushing Doom-Sludge artillery emphasised to great effect by the easy going start we were treated to by Thee Ludds. The star of the show is the vocalist, who makes use of the space down the front left by the stand-offish crowd. Bare-chested, he never sets foot on the stage, preferring to circle the front of the dance floor like the proverbial caged animal whilst spitting out the lyrics right in the audience’s face. The rest of the band stand back and deliver the heavy doom soundtrack to complete the sound. A great band to see live for sure, and they may have been responsible for pulling in a large proportion of tonight’s punters with it being a rare home show.

With little fanfare, Wet Nuns start their headline set and grab everyone’s attention from the first few bars. They may not have packed out the Soundhouse tonight, but those who are here get treated to a short but very sweet show.

Their sound is often compared to Queens of the Stoneage, who the band are openly fans of, but there is more to the Sheffield pair’s sound than simple Josh Homme worship. Stoner, Punk, Blues and plenty more all go into the melting pot to give Wet Nuns a real heavy punch one minute complimented by fuzzy interludes the next. It’s not a new concept but one the Wet Nuns are pretty handy at to say the least.

No American accents present tonight but Alexis’s drums take centre stage complete with bull horns to give the gig a touch of the rodeo. To his right Rob provides the riffs and jams “which would have been longer if the Wah-Wah pedal wasn’t broken”. They finish on a high, unleashing a brace of their best known songs ‘Heavens Below’ and ‘Throttle’ and leave with the minimum fuss in which they arrived.

It was a short little set played to a lucky few. When Wet Nuns get some more music out there for people to hear I’m sure the crowds will start to grow. The songs that they have to date are top quality and the groove when you hear them live is pretty special. Those tipsters weren’t wrong!