problemface Yes, I guess that's the difference between imitation and giving your influences a bend of your own, right? Punk is not about reinventing the wheel, but making a mediocre carbon copy of what already has been is a waste.
Great bands have their influences, but add something of their own. They have their own personality, but you have to be willing to hear and see that. That's why I grow so tired of record reviews only making references to the golden classics as well as the FFO phenomenon. It's lazy and boring. In a way it doesn't allow a band to be more than a copy of something better.
I think Lumpy and Uranium Club have the same quality as those early 2000s bands you mention. To me they were the torch bearers of that era, spawning armies of bad copies.
This seems to be the common course. Band X gets 'big' -> a zillion similar bands like band X pop up. Most are throw away, a few have their own take on what band X did are okay, a few might even be good -> X breaks up, outgrows its own sound and starts making records nobody wants to hear or keeps doing the same thing over and over and the public loses interest -> Europe doesn't get the memo and starts imitating band X once a new trend comes from the US or Australia.
Also 'Warm Home' by Condominium was a great record. I'm a hardcore boy, I'm afraid. Keep schooling me though.
