"DO we have to answer that question?" pleads Dan Howard, Wintermute's approachable front man, his bottom lip stud glinting in the chicken joint's strip lights.

"It's the usual story that we met at university, but we prefer to say that we were assembled by a high council of wizards who needed us for a mystic crusade.

"But we realised music was our true calling, called off the crusade and formed a band."

So far, so different, but Wintermute really take their magical fantasy seriously. They're in York, about to play The Duchess, the new venue next to the long-established Fibbers. The next day they will take the stage at Leeds indie-mecca the Brudenell Social Club dressed as their sorcerer alter-egos and launch their new EP Fun With Wizard Stencils.

"We like the live thing a lot. It's where we feel comfortable as a band," says Dan. "Dressing up as wizards just seems natural if you're going to call your record Fun With Wizard Stencils."

Wintermute have been around for three or four years – a lifetime in Leeds band terms – but they've never let themselves be taken for granted. Their sound is an intoxicating and audaciously fully-formed blend of stop-start rhythms, intricate, harmonising guitar work and half-shouted vocals.

"We put a lot of energy into it," says guitarist and vocalist Dave Hemmings, "but we appeal to geeks because we like messing around with time signatures and stoppy-starty rhythms, but keep it quite poppy."

And it's now with Fun With Wizard Stencils that their sound and frenetic live show is really getting noticed. They've completed four UK tours, latterly with Oceansize and their Leeds-brethren These Monsters.

Things really kicked off for Dan, Dave, drummer Ben Johnson and bassist Chris Newbould (the only Leeds native among them) when they won the Bright Young Things competition last year and Futuresound, granting them a highly prized place at Leeds Festival. They've even appeared on television, on Manchester's digital Channel M, playing live.

"It was the biggest thing we'd ever played," says Dan, "and were nervous before we went on, but once we were on stage we got on with it."

"Winning Futuresound changed everything, especially in Leeds," adds Dave. "It got us more press too, and the EP as our first major release has helped."

And with that press has come comparison. For Wintermute, a suggested musical kinship with Oxford "math rock" band Foals, who are noted too for their taut and techy sound. Fortunately, the link doesn't faze them.

"We've definitely never consciously tried to sound like Foals," says Dave. "It's not that we had that kind of sound first, more that we developed from the same set of influences.

"Reviewers will always compare you to something they know. But I don't mind, because Foals are a good band. It's not like we're being constantly compared to UB40 or Snow Patrol. But that has actually happened, bizarrely."

Wintermute say they sit comfortably within what has become a varied and precocious music family.

"The Leeds scene is really special," says Dan. "Bands don't sound anything like each other and they'll really help each other out all the time. There's These Monsters, Paul Marshall – an amazing songwriter, Grammatics, Human Fly, I Concur – there are just so many."

So, despite the kind of press which saw NME describe them as "a curious combo of At The Drive-In and Interpol, splashed with a bit of Foals-ian mathletics, tight and adventurous, Wintermute are cool", they claim not to have a grand plan.

"We're not really ready for that Kaiser Chiefs level of success," says Ben. "We're good at the music side, but we don't do the organising so well," says Dan. "That's why our rise, if you like, has been so slow. We do have a manager and a label though."

And the last word to Chris, who makes an observation with which any overnight success band now stuck in the bargain bin would concur.

"It's better to have a solid fan base built slowly than be a flash in the pan," he nods sagely.

Wintermute play Leeds Festival's DTTR Stage on Thursday, August 21. Fun With Wizard Stencils is available via www.myspace.
com/wintermute