Noel Gallagher rarely has time for any bands other than his own and, of course, the Beatles. During last month’s round of interviews to promote the Oasis greatest-hits album, Stop the Clocks, however, he paused to wax lyrical about the one 1980s artist he has any respect for: “The magic of the Smiths,” he said, “was that you never knew when the records were coming out, you never knew what studio they were in. You can get on a Radiohead website now and see Thom Yorke in his socks making his album. You never knew what Morrissey was up to until you opened the NME and saw ‘Smiths album in two weeks’.”

Gallagher is not alone in his passion. The live and recorded scene is packed with albums and tours from a host of twentysomethings who’ve put together bands with guitars that crisply sweep like Johnny Marr’s, a rhythm section that holds a tight, hard-working downbeat and a singer whose voice climbs and dives like Morrissey. November has spawned a monster, and the four most successful monsters are the Long Blondes, the Boyfriends, the Hot Puppies and the Isles. These outfits represent the signed and gigging shock troops of a miserabilist army that has footsoldiers in the pay-to-play bars and amateur recording studios of every big British city. In the 20 years since they split, the Smiths have never been so influential.

Leading the charge are the Long Blondes. For two years, this Sheffield five-piece were the “best unsigned band” in every indie music mags readers’ poll. Combining the upfront glamour of their lead singer, Kate Jackson, with music that blends the mournful and the positively fatback, the three girls and two boys hauled around the UK gigging like fury until a deal was inked in April. Their first album, Someone to Drive You Home, is out this month.

“I think all the best bands are about offering some sort of solace to people who feel isolated and spend too much time in their bedrooms,” says their drummer, Screech Louder. “For me, that means the Smiths and Pulp. Like them, we’re intelligent people who are capable of thinking about both our music and the way we look.”

“I grew up in Bury St Edmunds living on seven-inch singles,” adds Jackson. “And they’re still the only thing I really buy. That idea of a perfect pop moment seems to have been lost. We’re trying to bring it back.”

The Hot Puppies also boast a female singer — a rare feature in the indie scene, but an easy fit with the androgynous inspiration offered by Stephen Patrick Morrissey. Bec Newman’s voice sounds like a blend between Manchester’s finest and Phil Spector’s Gold Star Studios in LA. The band’s first album, Under the Crooked Moon, was out in the summer, and they’ve got live dates dotted across the autumn.

Following closely behind on the live circuit are the Boyfriends. London-based singer Martin Wallace put the band together four years ago and they released their debut LP in October. “You can tell from my voice that I’ve spent far too many nights in my bedroom singing along with Morrissey,” he admits ruefully. “I used to go down to Beanos, a second-hand record store in Croydon, and buy up every Smiths thing they had. Their back catalogue is perfect, there’s not a single duff song. They make you feel that you’re not alone.”

Indeed, this appears to be the common refrain — that listening to the Smiths has a timeless appeal to those who feel “other” during the crippling teenage years. It’s as if the angst of the skinny, unloved adolescent was trapped in amber between 1982 and 1987 on four studio albums and a handful of compilations. John Peel famously said that the Smiths were the only band who could make him laugh out loud, but humour takes second place with this new breed — and they’ve avoided gladioli, too.

Complex song titles, on the other hand, they’ve got in spades. Where the Smiths dubbed tracks Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now or William, It Was Really Nothing, the Hot Puppies opt for The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful; the Boyfriends sing about A Fearless Heart; the Long Blondes favour Separated by Motorways; and the Isles have opted for Flying Under Cheap Kites.

In some ways, the Isles are the most interesting. Formed in New York, they rejected the current

US indie fad for experimental soundscapes and sparse art-house rumbling to craft classic 1980s guitar pop. The four-piece even signed to a Manchester record label rather than a US one.

“The Smiths aren’t our only influence,” says the guitarist Ben Haberland, “but they seem to represent all that’s perfect about Manchester music — that gloomy prettiness carried along in a wash of sound. It’s about a dream of getting out of the place you come from, but feeling a huge attachment to it at the same time.” Although the Smiths failed to break America, last month saw Johnny Marr join his first full-time band since: Modest Mouse, a product of the burgeoning Portland, Oregon, scene. It would appear, for Smiths fans, that there really is A Light That Never Goes Out.

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