First it was Diplo slinging mud at his ex-squeeze M.I.A. for making ‘a turd’ of an album, and now UK legends The Prodigy are laying into their Australian buddies Pendulum. Well, at least that’s what the British press would have you believe, but in reality it’s far less sinister than that.

Speaking to NME recently, Prodigy mastermind Liam Howlett raged about the persistent comparisons between the two electronic mega groups that continue to pop up.

“People go on about Pendulum being similar to us but they really aren’t. I think when you see us alongside each other it’s fucking obvious that we’re totally different,” Howlett spat. “And we’re as fucked off with people going on about that as they are probably.”

While we didn’t ask whether or not the Pendulum boys were as “fucked off” with the comparisons as Howlett is when we spoke to the band’s Gareth McGrillen last month, we did ask about the relationship between the two groups, which McGrillen confirmed is stronger than ever.

“[When we met] we were all a bit standoffish with each other because, obviously, they’re our heroes and we figured that they saw us as these new kids on the block out to steal their thunder,” McGrillen explained. “But once we got chatting we realised that it was just some media-generated animosity born out of musical comparisons. But now we just love those guys and I think they feel the same way because they invited us on tour with them and we got Liam on Immersion.”

Interestingly enough, The Prodigy showed their vitality by placing #2 in ITM’s contributor poll from last week, where we counted down the greatest live acts in dance music, ahead of Pendulum at #7.

“They’re just incredible,” McGrillen said in awe of the Prodigy live show. “They’re real professionals and they know what they’re doing. They know how to be absolute psychos on stage and then chill out during the day. That’s something you need to learn otherwise you’d die from all that energy every night. I hope we’re the same way in ten years time.”

Check out the entire countdown of ITM’s 30 Greatest Live Acts In Dance Music.