There's nothing like having your preconceptions blown sky high. Say the words 'French band' and most people think of groovy Gallic house, chilled moog music and very little else.

Well Phoenix are a French band. But they don't sound like any 'French band' you've heard so far.

Don't get them wrong. The Paris-based foursome (who support The Bluetones at Brookes on Saturday) like club music, but they also like Serge Gainsbourg and AC/DC, country & western and blues. They like Michael Jackson and Ennio Morricone, free jazz saxophone and Gil Scott-Heron. "We're all children of the eighties," explains Laurent "Branco" Brancowitz. "We wanted to take the hot burning sound of America records and give them the contemporary feel of hip hop and house productions." The story starts in 1991. Thomas Mars (vocals), Deck D'Arcy (bass) and Christian Mazzalai (guitars) were a garage band practising in the garage of Thomas's house in the Paris suburbs. Around that time, Christian's older brother Branco was playing in the short-lived indie outfit Darlin'. When that ended in 1995, big brother came in on guitar. In 1997 they hit on the Phoenix name and pressed up 500 singles on their own label. Ghettoblaster. Soon, Paris-based Source records were on the phone.

Recorded over two months, United was a family affair. Deck's mum appears on the track, along with the rest of her choral society.

"There is irony in our music," admits Thomas. "We're not afraid to listen to things that are not cool. Even in bad music you can find something good. But in the end we want to do good music, not a joke."