The Unisex emerge from the ferry at Dover. The dazzling spotlight of fame blinds their vision, as does the battalion of security heavyweights drumming their fingers impatiently at the head of the travelling queue.
The rock'n'roll style police await. They have some probing questions for the Swedish six-piece, wide-eyed from Stockholm and looking to infiltrate a clinically defined and deeply stylised closed shop in the year 2003.
"Do you punk-funk boy?" asks a severe-looking officer. "No", replies frontman Jonas Linde. "Are you American?" "No" says Linde, again, in a brazenly Swedish accent. "Are you, in actual fact", demands the increasingly grizzled sleuth, developing a kind of 'Dr Strangelove' intensity, "so completely out-of-touch that, as far as you're concerned, The Bluetones rule and the DFA are a government department that deals with an overseas incident?" Linde gives a resigned nod.
Days later, on-stage at The Water Rats, the living hell that is London's 'playground' for spit and sawdust rock'n'roll, Linde coos: "Everything has it's time and place". Quite. Because, despite dropping to Earth ten years too late, and eschewing the pulsing lifeblood of the vice-like current scene - raw, feral edge, louche style, a derivative but thrilling sonic modus operandi - The Unisex may yet be unlikely guests at this party.
Not that their chromium, Glam-infested stomp clash isn't derivative. We're talking the kind of melodies and careless, grinning celebratory vibe last seen a decade ago. It's The Stone Roses, The Charlatans - Hammond is present and correct - and The Rolling Stones in a lusty, guitar-knotted triad, with a hip-shaking pretty-boy frontman lighting the fireworks. Of tonight's eight tracks, debut single 'Take Me Higher' has a yearning, lovelorn chime and rising chorus that may well forewarn the UK charts of an impending invasion, whilst 'Infected' is the Stones reworking 'Rocks' or Primal Scream coming up rather than down.
The freewheeling riffing of the giveaway-titled 'Friday Night' provides an explosive climax, taking on almost 'Spinal Tap' levels of sweat-soaked facial gurning and axe-grappling amongst the infectiously enthusiastic band. At the eye of the storm is the charisma-fat Linde, his shirt unbuttoned to one fastner, swaggering and sliding like a miniature Jagger and lapping-up the adulation arrowing his way from a gaggle of hypnotised femmes already on the band's tail, and, inevitably, in their bulging pants.
The fashionistas may well want their pound of flesh from The Unisex, but something tells us that the bourgeois heads will get to them first.
