civilian

Imagine the worst night of your life. Going to see one of your bands play in Brighton on a Sunday evening, when you have urgent work to get done. Having been promised they will be on stage at seven and needing to pick up the masters of the new record from them, you make the journey but find yourselves sitting at the bar at ten o’clock with no band having made an appearance, no masters having appeared, and smoke pouring from your ears. Finally, the first band of the night comes on. And, bloody hell.

It was the voice that did it. Who was that singing? And who was playing those guitars? We made our way to the front of the stage and it was mesmerising.

Talking to the band afterwards we discovered they were from our home town of Horsham, and they sent us a CD of some of the stuff they had recorded. These were supposed to be demos to raise interest, but we didn’t play anything else for months. The band was signed to Isolation and the ‘December EP’ was released in December 2006. The lead track ‘Spirituality’ was played on daytime BBC 6 Music, and people flipped over it. This was followed by the ‘If The Sun Could Speak EP’, and now the debut album, ‘When Was It Anything Else?’

The band had begun when Adam Moseley remarked to his friends how amazing it would be to create one of the best bands in Britain. There was only one problem – none of them could play. Undeterred, the gauntlet was taken up, and with no immediate spark the group locked themselves away and began to work hard. Surprised by the sound they eventually developed, and the incredible reaction to it, they decided Civilian was a suitable name for the band – showing that though it is easy to keep your head down and be content to blend in with the crowd, when you actually make the effort to search inside you can find abilities that make you shine.

Six years on, Civilian continue to shine. Storms of guitars and intricate melodies; amazing vocals, thoughtful lyrics and stunning musicianship with fight and soul and power. Civilian don’t sound like anybody else around; they have gone their own way, spurning mainstream trends. This is independent music how it used to be: smart, innovative and confident enough to take its own place in the world.