Christmas is upon us once again, and some local scientists have received the perfect gift in the form of an astonishing breakthrough. A team of researchers based out of Capital Normal University, who have spent over two years monitoring music across the world, have made their longed-for discovery in their own back yard. All the evidence suggests that Beijing punk group Hang On The Box are in fact the single worst band on the planet.

"We were amazed and delighted to finally uncover who is the most dreadful band in the world, especially to find them here in Beijing," says team leader Dr. Lin Yuan. "Of course, it's possible that there is a worse band out there somewhere but they would have to go an awfully long way to even catch up with Hang On The Box's levels of terribleness."

There has been controversy over the different methods of measuring the quality of a band, but HOTB go to the extremes on every test, in some cases even going off the scale. "Their uncreativity quotient, for example," says Dr. Lin, "is higher than anything we have ever recorded. But we're not even sure just how uncreative they are, as our measuring device only goes up to three megaStyxes."

In addition to scoring record low numbers on technique, lyrics and showmanship, HOTB also have one of the most spectacularly untalented lead singers ever discovered. Over the course of more than five gigs observed by the research team, statisticians estimated that she should have hit at least one note. The fact that she didn't is the product of a probability which is utterly staggering.

On the one hand, this is a fantastic achievement for the Chinese research team, who have been competing to find the world's worst band in a race against groups from as far as Argentina, Syria and Denmark. On the other, while we cannot confirm rumours that the band are currently being hunted for by police as an embarrassment to China, we can only hope, so that we never have to hear that hideous caterwauling ever again.