Flight of the Conchords rule, mutha uckas

You have to give the people down HBO a pat on the back. They don't disappoint very often. From Angels In America to The Wire, they are responsible for a significant proportion of the very best of American TV in the last ten years or so. Their shows are often diamonds in the deep black coal pit of network TV that gets exported to Britain, and one such gem has made its way to our shores, via America, from the rock hub that is...New Zealand.

Flight of the Conchords - "formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo accapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo" - have now gone global. From success at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival to the band's EP The Distant Future bringing the band - and record label Sub Pop - its first ever Grammy win, the Conchords have gone from strength to strength.

It's easy to see why. These guys are no musical slouches; from the fantasy folk of Albi (a strangely tender ditty about a racist dragon who has a life changing ecounter with a disfigured Albanian boy in a scary cave) to the soulful Think About It, Think Think About It, these guys know their way around a good tune. Most comedy bands can come off as corny parodies (I'm all for listening to Dick In A Box, but it proves that The Lonely Island are one-trick ponies), but the Conchords base their songs in comfortably familiar territories, which helps give them a surprising amount of depth, along with some utterly brilliant rhymes delivered in a fantastically OTT style (sample: "Man's lying on the street/Some punk's chopped off his head/I'm the only one who stops/To see if he's dead/Mmm...turns out he's dead").

Here's some audio from their One Night Stand on HBO; hope you enjoy it as much as I do!