At first sight, EMI signing a band like the Research seems a bit like AC Milan taking on a player from a pub team. The label is associated with the Beatles, Coldplay and lavish orchestration. The Research hail from Wakefield, use a two-piece drum kit and a £9 keyboard which singer Russell Searle - who, ominously for EMI, uses the nickname "the Disaster" - balances on his knee.

When they first crank up, Sarah Williams's drums sound like the bashing of biscuit-tin lids and Georgia Lashbrook's bass doesn't seem to be plugged in. The Disaster wears a peaked cap with badges all over it and hair sticking out. He sings in an American accent and comes over a bit Woody Allen.

Together it all sounds either like Jilted John fronting the Ronettes or as if Brian Wilson had formed the Beach Boys in a junk shop, but once you get your head around that, this is a decidedly good thing. EMI have taken a risk taking on a band like this but have undoubtedly recognised that beneath the low-rent instrumentation lurk some killer songs. The Research pen melodies that would grace Steely Dan or Motown but the fact that they choose to deliver them in an almost Toytown way becomes part of the charm. "What on earth was that?" chuckles someone as the Disaster wrings out a keyboard solo that sounds like Telstar played on a squeaky toy.

The music's grin quotient shrouds the melancholy and bite in the Disaster's words about "heartless cows", disastrous romances and dead-end northern towns. It's not unfeasible to imagine the sublime Lonely Hearts Still Beat the Same becoming a massive and only slightly novelty hit, which would allow the Research all manner of indulgences, like a keyboard stand.

· At Barfly, Glasgow (0870 907 0999), tonight, then touring.