But since this pseudo-flannel hype is fueled by the notoriously over-embellishing UK press, the question, as always, is should you believe it? Yes. Partially, anyway.
The Guardian's Dave Simpson is on it:
Dinosaur Pile-Up are at the forefront of what may turn out to be the year's most unlikely musical development: grungy music from in and around Leeds. The original American grunge bands fused rock with a punk aesthetic in a revolt against the "hair metal" bands that had been the dominant form of hard rock over the preceding few years. It seems their Yorkshire successors are also reacting to something: the "New Yorkshire" sound that has dominated guitar music in the north for the last three or four years.
"If you're involved in the music scene in Leeds, you get it rammed down your throat that the Kaiser Chiefs and the Pigeon Detectives are your legacy," says Harry Johns, who fronts the Old Romantic Killer Band, a guitar-drums duo who sound like a grunged-up 60s power trio. "We all love the Cribs because of the punk aesthetic and the stripped-down sounds. But otherwise [New Yorkshire] wasn't for us. We'd meet at parties and say, 'We're not really into this are we?' Then we started bands."
But why grunge bands?
Grunge has been unfashionable for years, but among the twentysomethings who experienced it at a formative age – many weren't long out of pushchairs – it never really went away. "When I used to run a club night I'd always play Smells Like Teen Spirit," admits Russell, the guitarist with Wonderswan, a quintet who shuns surnames but make a beautifully shambolic fuzz-laden racket. "If you talk to people at gigs or in clubs, they've never really gone off that stuff."
"It wasn't a case of, 'Let's start a grunge band,'" says Johns. "It was a case of, 'What records do you listen to? What can we do that's a bit fresher? Rawer and dirtier.'"
Personally, we're quite into the tracks Dinosaur Pile-Up have on their MySpace page. We'd dig The Old Romantic Killer Band a bit more if we weren't so over the bass-less duo thing. But they are pretty cool, regardless.
And the rest? Eh...
[h/t Idolator.]
