Reality bites, day in day out, and more discerning music journalists know it better than most: no money, no drive, no mojo; a slew of sound-a-fucking-like bands cruising into the usual suspect rags, dominating where superior acts should be shoving them to the sidelines. See: The Enemy, recently awarded a Q award in the Best New Act category. You have to wonder just how many bands the voting panel has heard in a 12-month period to arrive at such a result.

What’s additionally worth remembering, though, is that operating on the fringes of the mainstream does not automatically make a guitar band cooler, or better, than those already populating the pages of NME, et al. Officer Kicks might be unheard of by all but the most spotty of interns MySpace-flicking in The Fly’s office, but their approach is absolutely in tune with the aforementioned Coventry trio: drama-stripped real-life slogs set to an ordinary arrangement, lyrics about the “dog day rush” and “no more money”, two-day old curries worth the risk in an otherwise empty fridge. It’s as perfectly heartless as Hard-Fi, and almost certainly destined, therefore, for some C-List circulation on formerly alternative radio stations.

Nuts magazine has previously awarded Officer Kicks a maximum five-outta-five review. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about their so-fucking-what shtick, nothing will. Leave it alone – the more you scratch the nastier it’ll become.