So I dragged out my one remaining flannel Tuesday. What a fine day to do so.

By mere coincidence — or perhaps not — Sony Music decided to release Audioslave’s self-titled debut Tuesday.

And so the great god of grunge reached down and gave me the sign — I was to wear flannel that day. Long thought gone, the great god of grunge reared his stocking-capped head, adjusted his long johns and laced his Birkenstocks.

A lot of things seem to come in threes in Christianity — the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, wise men, etc. — so why not in genres of music?

In the last three weeks, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the aforementioned Audioslave released albums. Of course, Audioslave seems to be the odd band out.

But have no worries. The rule of three is in effect.

Despite the familiar Rage Against the Machine guitar and rhythm sections, Audioslave transcends the sounds of social protest with help from former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell’s stratospheric vocals.

The grunge triumvirate is complete. There’s even a Father (old man Pearl Jam), Son (freshly re-formed Audioslave) and Holy Ghost (the defunct but pervasive Nirvana).

It has been quite some time since radio stations played new songs sung by Eddie Vedder, Cornell and Kurt Cobain.

Back in 1994, this wouldn’t have been so odd. Pearl Jam’s “Better Man,” Soundgarden’s “Fell on Black Days” and Nirvana’s acoustic “About a Girl” were tearing up the airwaves.

But these recent releases are no resurrection.

Pearl Jam’s “Riot Act” is the band’s best release since 1996’s “No Code.” Once-tortured lead singer Vedder dropped the spokesman-for-a-generation tag long ago; he no longer wears his flannel on his sleeve.

Instead, “Riot Act” is a record of Pearl Jam’s self-contentment, and also collaboration — drummer Matt Cameron even plays guitar on a track.

And rather than turning the band’s tragic Denmark show in 2000 — where nine fans died — into a “Jeremy” for a new generation, the band penned one of its most moving songs ever, “Love Boat Captain.”

Vedder’s wellspring of optimism even urges him to borrow from The Beatles, as he closes the song with the words “All you need is love.”

Courtney Love certainly had a difficult task in fashioning Nirvana’s best-of collection, which struggles in its incompleteness. The grungiest of the three recent releases, “Nirvana,” with the lone new track, “You Know You’re Right,” feels like the last gasp of a dying man — one of genius, but a gasp nonetheless.

By combining the wealth of rare tracks and the collection of homemade Cobain cassettes, Love could have presented a final, definitive statement of Nirvana. Instead, she cheapened the legacy with the Billboard—ready disc.

And then there is the record-executive-approved alchemy that mixes three parts Rage Against the Machine with one part Soundgarden to create surefire SoundScan results.

Outside the hype, the music’s not too bad either.

Tom Morello’s signature guitar noise recalls Rage at its finest, but Cornell’s pipes are the true hook, bellowing with “Spoonman”-level force on the album opener “Cochise.”

It’s not really grunge, though. But it’s not protest-heavy rap-funk-rock, either. Grunk?

Anyway, at 2:08 a.m. Wednesday morning, “Riot Act” was 24 on the Amazon.com Sales Rank. “Nirvana” was 22 and “Audioslave” was 20.

All in all, not too bad for some Seattle kids who grew up.

But the “return” of grunge is fleeting, ready to disappear into a dark chasm soon enough.

Kind of like my red flannel.

Christian Dahlager

is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Cottage Grove, Minn. He is a design editor for the Daily.