Sunday 21/08/2005 The Research, Roland Shanks, Patricia Vonne @ The Windmill, London

It’s a joyous thing when you can walk into a pub and find it’s been turned upside down by a woman possessing an almighty set of lungs and some castanets. It’s even better when you realise that this is Patricia Vonne and her band, because they’re, like, in films and stuff. Vonne spits and seduces in equal measure, from the ‘Ballroom Blitz’ sound of ‘Rebel Bride’ to the swooning likes of ‘Guitarras y Castanuelas’ and ‘Traeme Paz’.

If you think you’ve seen her somewhere before, you may have in Sin City as one of the guerrilla hookers or showing up in brother Robert Rodriguez’s films. The cinema history shows: it’s a visually great show with lots of dramatic arm movements and dancing around getting an increasingly grinning audience as bouncy as they’re likely to get when cradling a pint in their arms.

South London quintet Roland Shanks are exactly like Razorlight, Bloc Party and any other artrock band you’d care to name, but done better. Set up in late 2004 they’ve cannily distilled everything that’s worked before and locked it into a tight, snappy set with new single 'August' leading the way. Just hope the backlash doesn’t start until more people have had the chance to discover this lot.

Suddenly Gigwise’s view is blocked out by the forest of giant fans tightly packing out the front of the Windmill – people are standing on chairs, grinning away, hell – there’s even some girls dancing which can mean only one thing, it’s teentastic fun time!

The Research are the sort of kids you’d expect to see indulging in japery and larks, probably pushing each other around in shopping trolleys and Having Fun. They could be anywhere between 19 and 25, but in Gigwise’s head they’re 15 and will stay that way for continuity purposes. Their tunes are so cute, sweet and generally adorable that saying anything mean about them would be like poking at kittens with sharp sticks.

It’s to the band’s credit that they turn out the sort of performance that’s guaranteed to have record execs smacking their heads for not thinking of finding a good teen band before: happy music about how rubbish girls are, happy music about how rubbish boys are, how nice it is to be with your friends – all are accompanied by ancient Casio beats and samples topped off by the girls’ uncanny backing vocals and Russell’s self-deprecating words. The shimmering sound of current single “I Love You But…” is sweet but devastating, with a refrain that’s guaranteed to become a classic: “I love you but I’m scared of ****ing up.” Why hasn’t anybody said that before, instead of dressing it up with angst and troubling facial hair? More fool you industry suckers.

Like all good superheroes they’re not completely foolproof. They’ve moved on a lot since last single ‘She’s Just Leaving’ but the other A-side to ‘I Love You But…’, 'C’mon Chameleon', is a patchy strip of noise that is shown up by the poppy fuzziness of the other numbers. Still, The Research are sweet without being saccharine, bouncy without being repetitive and so lovely that they may as well have it tattoed over their foreheads. Grab yourself a piece while you can.