Only at the South by Southwest festival could a Texas bar have turned into a mutual admiration society for the faces of Britpop past and present.

“Damon Albarn walked up to me and I screamed like a little girl,” Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson recalls of his first encounter with the Blur icon. “By the end of the night we were sitting on the pavement sharing a cigarette, and then he came to see us and said he enjoyed it immensely.

”It was great. People say don’t meet your heroes, but I recommend it.”

Whether or not he intended it that way, it’s hard not to see Albarn’s praise as a passing of the torch. A decade after its mid-90s peak, Britpop is alive and well again – but with the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs leading the way, it’s taking on a whole different shape from the days when Oasis and Blur were duking it out for the hearts of the U.K.

It’s not that the music is a huge leap. Each of the bands at the forefront of the latest British invasion is strongly influenced by their countrymen of the recent and distant past, and on the Kaiser Chiefs’ successful debut, Employment, the similarities to Blur (which Wilson attributes to a mutual affinity for the Kinks) are unmistakable. But when it comes to personality, a whole lot has changed.

Once upon a time, U.K. acts could be counted on to be surly, self-aggrandizing and confrontational. But in their successful efforts to get Britrock back on the map, today’s standard-bearers have employed an entirely different ethic – one that sees them touring their hearts out, cheerily answering interviewers’ questions, and actively trying to win over their fans.

“For a long time it was very uncool to be in a British band – especially in Britain,” Wilson recalls. “If you didn’t come from New York or Detroit or even Australia, you were worth nothing, really.

“All these bands – Franz Ferdinand, the Futureheads, Bloc Party, Razorlight – knew we had to try a little bit harder just to get noticed by the British press. Now there’s been a resurgence in British music, because I think we all try very hard to make it work.”

Key to that effort is an accessibility previously alien to the British music scene. “I used to go and see bands, and there was kind of a difference between who was on stage and who was in the audience,” Wilson says. “It was like, ‘look at us, we’re cooler than you.’ Now, I think that wall has been broken down a bit. There’s less of a boundary - it’s more a party.”

Forsaken are their Britrock forefathers’ inter-band sniping (“It makes for boring press – we all get along very well,” Wilson says) and constant chest-thumping. In their place is a modesty that, real or affected, is playing much better on this side of the Atlantic.

Of course, all this goodwill may not be enough to escape the wrath of the ever-fickle British music press. But Wilson is convinced that there’s a way around that.

“I know I’m digging myself a hole here,” he begins, “but people in bands always complain, ‘Oh, there’s this backlash against us.’ But I think you can stop backlashes by having your next song better than your last song. Even the music press can’t argue with that.