Civil Civic / Rules

Civil Civic
Rules
(Self Release)
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The way the news is currently heading, by the time you read this the UK will have ejector-seated out of Europe like Sean Connery in Thunderball, the single currency will have joined the Berlin Wall for a double vodka in the Big Fat Loser's Bar, and all of Britain's under 25's - especially the toddlers - will be demanding W*A*R with capitalism. Which would of course mean more bad news for HMV.

Yes, the future's uncertain and the end is always near, but if there's one thing you can count on in these apocalyptic months, it's that the music scene will gnash its teeth together and produce a turbulent soundtrack for turbulent times. Like Mona! Er… Mona? Mona? Come back? Mona?

OK we've lost Mona - this is serious. Welcome ringside then, humanity's last hope; a band who consider an actual robot to be among their personnel, the unfairly good Civil Civic.

This two piece (or three if you include the robot) have littered the last year with a variety of singles that have demonstrate their hardwired dancefloor manifesto: fuzz bass played by in the funkiest sci-fi style possible, synths that glow in the dark, and addictively block-rocking breakbeats.

Civil Civic might seem all mysterious and countercultural, but their music is actually really easy to enjoy; see the climactic distortion orgy 'Lights On A leash', or 'Sky Delay', which sounds like a space chase on Venus between Orb the Night Demon and a fleet of Intergalactic NinjaBots. It's basically as fun as He-Man, but as ferociously adrenalised as being hit by a van.

Here comes 2012 then: a year in which David Cameron will plausibly be captured by 'feral' teenagers and forced to play gimp, Ed Milliband will be applauded for building his first stickleback castle, and 'Rules' will be 'ruling' the airwaves. How civil would that be?