photo courtesy of universal records The Rapture is much more than just an advent of the second coming of Jesus. It's also a New York-based disco punk band. The group touches down on earth (at Club Congress, to be exact) Tuesday.

Rock revolutions always seem to begin miles away.

The British Invasion, New York Punk, Seattle grunge: somehow it never seems to happen where you are.

Most people know by now that New York City is once again the focus of the media music hype-machine thanks to break-out rock acts like The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, the Liars, and now The Rapture.

When, Lord, when will Tucson have its time?

While waiting, you can close your eyes and pretend for one night you're in the center of all-rock-goings-on as the aforementioned Rapture dances its way into Club Congress Tuesday night.

Unlike more traditional-garage-rock peers, the Rapture's splicing of dance grooves and guitars allow you to shake your ass, but rock yourself.

"We just try and create an energy, create a vibe," bassist, vocalist, and keyboardist Mattie Safer said. "And we throw ourselves into what we do and hopefully get something thrown back at us that isn't a bottle."

A Rapture martini begins by taking one Vito Roccoforte (drums), a pinch of Gabe Andruzzi (sax, keyboards, percussion), add Safer, and finally mix with a splash of vocalist/guitarist Luke Jenner's high-pitched wail. Stir and you've got a dance-dance-revolution.

The band relies on electronic devices similar to what certain DJs might use, like an 808, on certain songs. While live instruments, like drums and a bass, are played on others (though sometimes in tandem).

The result is a poppy, eclectic, electro-rock fusion that aims to get the audience shaking like Polaroid pictures, but doesn't try too hard.

"It's always one of my least favorite things when a band that's not inspiring people to dance is trying to blame the audience for that," Safer said. "We just try and create an environment that is conducive to it."

The band almost didn't make the Big Apple scene, previously stationed in such places as San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle before settling into New York over four years ago. After losing members here and there, founders Jenner and Roccoforte picked up cousins Safer and Andruzzi in 1999 and 2001, respectively. The result has been the band's most "solid lineup" with impeccable timing and location.

"We just moved there (NYC) because we wanted to move there," Safer said. "And then a couple years went by and things started happening. There were some

interesting things going on. A lot of the bands that are 'happening' now weren't even around yet. They were twinkles in the eyes of their creators."

Safer said his band feels disjointed from its big-name New York rock peers.

"Musically, they're not really who we 'came up with,' as it were," he said. "We were just kind of doing our own thing and all of them ... like everyone kind of came up on doing their own thing. It wasn't like a small scene in the sense of a group of people banding together and really influencing each other at the early stages of being in bands and that sort of thing. It's more just everyone did their own thing and through some certain measures of success have come to be viewed together."

So at least Tucson can sleep well knowing that if it ever does blow-up musically, all the big bands will leave town anyway. So maybe it doesn't matter where bands come from, as long as they visit from time to time.

"The people we know from it, there are some who are still active in New York but then there are a lot of other bands that really aren't as active in New York anymore because they're touring or making records," he said. "We probably play in New York, at this point, probably three times a year. It'd be nice to play there more often but it's not such a small world for us anymore."

The Rapture plays Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St., Tuesday night with Beans at 9 p.m. Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 the day of the show.