On the "Grunge Revival"

It's pretty interesting how I was completely unaware of the so-called grunge revival, prior to watching Muskets perform with Weatherstate, Eat Defeat and This Time Last Year, last August, despite being aware of Manchester's Smother and having seen Stoud's Milk Teeth open for Creeper just a few months prior. It's also interesting how there is a distinct style, currently manifesting itself, that people have given the name of a style that was... well never really a style at all.

If you're unaware of my distaste for the term “grunge”, then let me fill you in. “What is the requirements for a band to be grunge?” That's a question I've never heard answered with any kinda validity in somebody's voice. The closest I've ever heard is “bands from Seattle who are merging punk and metal”, but that completely discounts so many of the bands in this movement. Because, if that's the case then Mother Love Bone aren't a grunge band, Mudhoney aren't a grunge band, the Melvins aren't a grunge band and even Pearl Jam aren't a grunge band, as: Mother Love Bone are a glam metal band, with no traces of punk; Mudhoney are a punk (or even a garage rock) band with no traces of metal; the Melvins aren't from Seattle; and Pearl Jam are an alternative rock band with very few elements of either punk or metal.

The only bands I can think of that fit this description would be Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Green River and; maybe; Sunny Day Real Estate (but that's a bit of a stretch). And even then, these bands don't sound much alike: Alice in Chains and Soundgarden both played alternative metal in the '90s (but still sounded very different); Nirvana did whatever they really wanted, from alternative rock to post-hardcore to borderline-alternative metal and shoegaze; Green River played a hardcore-leaning style of sludge metal; and Sunny Day Real Estate (despite always being clumped into the Midwest emo category) played a shoegaze-esque style of post-hardcore. However, despite Sunny Day Real Estate being a stretch, they are actually the closest-sound band to the grunge revival; closer, in many cases, than even Nirvana.

Obviously a band, like Socotra from San Francisco, is very much closer to “Nevermind”-era Nirvana, because they're aping the style heavily and not experimenting like many of the the bands. However, a majority of these “revival bands”; such as Fangclub, Muskets, Milk Teeth, Smother, Teenage Wrists, Citizen, Strange Wilds, Can't Swim, Nothing, “UnReal”-era My Ticket Home Yūrei and Cloakroom are taking a large amount of their influence from “Bleach”-era Nirvana and early-Sunny Day Real Estate with many elements of Fugazi, early-At the Drive-In, varying amounts of shoegaze and melancholic emo pop bands like the Ataris, Alkaline Trio and the Jealous Sound.

While I would never in my wildest dreams call “grunge” a genre, I would be very likely to refer to this style as a genre, whether I should refer to it as “emogaze”, “puke rock” (a reference to My Ticket Home), “grungegaze”, “grungemo” or any other ridiculous sounding term. I would, however, refer to this as sub-genre of post-grunge or maybe post-hardcore, if you're stretching it.

“How can you think post-grunge is a genre if grunge isn't?” you ask. Simple, post-grunge bands sound alike, maybe “post-grunge” isn't the best term to describe it either, but post-grunge's fusion of alternative metal, hard rock, punk rock and some elements of sludge metal is most definitely a solid “style”, rather than a culmination of a few bands from around the same place at around the same time.