Our quest for The Crappest Band In The World continues. This week, six Jesus-apologists from Reading. Prepare to get your God on with the indie stylings of Better Than Riches...

So, what are we dealing with?

Their names are Matthew, Rachel, Cameron, Samuel, Stuart and Matthias. They believe that Willo the Wisp made the world in seven days, and that if you do not think this too you will go to like hell, or something. They hail from the arse end of the Royal County of Berks, ie Reading. And readers, do not let the existence of Ricky Gervais lead you to think that Reading is a happening place. Cooper Temple Clause came from Reading. The only good thing about it is that it is 20 minutes from London. It is a shithole, with shops.

BTR say on their MySpace that they are influenced by The Strokes and God. And that is all very well, but you know, we all know what 'influenced by' means on a MySpace page. It just means one of Better Than Riches have at one time bought one record by The Strokes and that they deem them in some way to be 'cool'. They do not sound like them, though. They sound like this:

Interesting. And quite 'dancey' in a bafflingly unoriginal electro-rock sort of way. It is still about God though. We imagine it is some sort of brazen attempt to prey on the fertile, beat-addicted minds of Britain's yoot, although to be honest it just made us think 'Hm, what is better than riches? I know, MDMA'. That was probably not their intention, but there you go. They can pray for us.

As you can imagine, quite apart from being an irritating six piece who have songs called Devoted To Destruction (what do you think that is about readers? God, maybe?) and The Reason I Live (go on, guess, what do you think the 'reason they live' is? No? Come on everyone, THINK. Oh yes, it is God again), they also have blog posts. One of which is intended to be helpful to other young Christians who wish to convert their friends. Here is one we were particularly amused by:

Two things, Better Than Riches. Actually, three. One, pop music is about pleasure. The fact that we assume you have some devoted following at your local evangelical madhouse does not denote talent in the 'Riches ranks. Leave music to the heathens, because you SUCK at it. Two, your blog post is riddled with the sort of spelling mistakes even my three year old nephew would be hard pushed to copy. It's HASSLE you absolute DIV. And three, there IS no reason on Dog's green earth why you should hassle non-Christians. Other than that you assume that anyone who doesn't believe in your peculiarly irrational folklore must have some sort of missing spiritual hole in their chest which you think you can fill. And we hate to be the ones to tell you this, but that hole isn't there. A Godless existence is one of joy, reason, free will and guilt-less bliss. It quite literally kicks ass.

One last thought. Better Than Riches have obviously named themselves - yawn - after a Proverb. But A Good Name Is Better Than Riches is more commonly attributed to Cervantes. And he wrote a story about a deluded man besieged by visions and egged on by a wrong-in-the-head sidekick who told him to do things. Now, does that remind you of anything?

Better Than Riches on the Internets (go and get their Playcount above the 300 mark. Or, you know, don't.)

If you wish to nominate a band for Roby's Rubs, email crap@thelipster.com