Duck past the appalling name and the two obvious sub-Goodies joke tracks on here, and you'll find there's more to The Rob Beadle Triangle Band than their comedy-schtick image. Yes, thery're student types from the University of Bath, laden down with flash gear and a taste for laddish zaniness that's very British, very '70s. No, that's not all. Like Barenaked Ladies, the Bonzos and Frank Zappa (or Prince, if he'd had slapstick leanings), they're musically skilled and canny enough to leap seamlessly between pop styles and come up with songs which can exist both as pisstakes and as serious efforts regardless of the goofy laughter which comes with them.

Though if you picked key comparisons, they'd be the "belly-laughs, angst-quirks, 'n'serious playing" ethic of the long-lost 64 Spoons, or 10cc's keen and unerring collective ear for tunes and parody filtered through studiedly cheesy wit - hence the near-perfect Bee Gees disco pastiche on "The Face". Embarrassment, misadventures and eccentric desires are the Beadle boys' main obsession. Nude gardening, suddenly finding your mum's the star player in the porn film your friends are watching - that sort of thing. "The Bitch Grated My Thumb" jumps between Jeff Lynne wussiness and panicky thrash; a tale of picking up a deranged baglady ("come to me, picture of beauty - lying in the gutter's no place to be") and of subsequently suffering assault by kitchenware. "She Had No Teeth" kicks off with "Mission Impossible" kettledrums and rampaging funk-wah guitar, and deals with the horror of waking up next to the woman you've pulled and discovering her gums are as bare as Patrick Stewart's scalp. As the band clatter on, whooping away on their Theremin synths, glassy jazz-funk organ riffs and Funkadelic party racket, a girl-group chorus airily sings "Things were different last night - she looked like a siren, he had his beer-goggles on" - while an anguished muffled voice yelps "Why me? Why me?".

It's all delivered with crisp production and flashes of superb musicianship (Hendrix/Hazel/Isleys-styled guitar, expert polyrhythmic drumming and keyboard swirls, Kristian Wood's crucially light touch on voice and bass), and taking care not to let the silliness derail the winning flutter of pop. Thankfully, they're closer to Space or Poisoned Electrick Head than to Barron Knights. The wiggly "You Are Confusing Me" sounds like the young Julian Cope spouting gibberish Gong lyrics, giggling his socks off in front of OMD synth overload. And something better is hinted at by the quite lovely "Strawberries And Cream". With flowing Spanish guitar, dancing flute lines and puffs of tremulous falsetto harmonies, it sounds like pastoral-period XTC and - in mischievous Andy Partridge tradition - is a lyrical love-song for food-fetishists, Kristian delicately murmuring "You, you're the sweetest thing I've seen - / let me cover you with cream (and strawberries). / We could find new ways of keeping clean, / let me lick you til you gleam (and sparkle)".

A pocket 10cc, then, with a more warped sense of humour, writing songs for a slightly cleaned-up "Viz".

Good Grief.

It's sort of like music by Pulp and Blur with Tom Waits lyrics. The music is really good. That comical style reminds me of a band I knew called 'The Zuno Men', formerly the 'Horse Doctors'. Same lyrical style.

It appears round, with little edges inside, that have to be there, because otherwise it would be too smooth.

The most fantastic record with an unapologetic Christmas theme you're likely to hear over the hols. Imagine "Stairway To Heaven" compressed into three-and-a-half minutes and sung in a splendidly over-the-top plummy lounge stylee. What's more, unlike most tracks with an, erm, humerous theme, it doesn't sound shite after two plays. 8 stars out of 10.

It's only September and this little gem has landed on my desk. One of the most enjoyable comedy tracks I have heard in a very long time. A must for the festive season.

Hee hee hee. A song about murdering turkeys for Christmas dinner to a tune of gentle lounge lizard style vocals and seasonal bells and chimes. It's daft, it's silly but it will probably get them on every new Christmas album from here on in. Rating: Fab.

Wow, cool! Disco returns. Slightly detuned-bass sounds. Jazz drumming sounds. KC 'n' the Sunshine Band or the Bee Gees! Kick ass! Disco returns with a vengeance, and some falsetto. Put on the afro wigs, and get jiggy in your platforms. Song is making me laugh, cuz of the falsetto... then comes the rock-out outro... heh. The rhythms and the grooves are masterful.

Psychofreakapotamus! This is the most jacked up track I've ever heard and I LOVE IT!!! There is so much originality going on in EVERY dimension of this song - instrumentation, phrasing, lyrics. The ironic thing is, even as offensive as it SHOULD be (with so many blatantly diff't things going on here - it's not - it's beautiful). If my bloody valentine & the p-funk allstars got together, it'd sound kinda like this, but not as good.