Few bands have left the gap between albums while still consistently operational as The Rock Of Travolta. Nearly eight years on from debut Uluru, and nearly ten from opening Radiohead’s big South Park home town event, the possessors of one of the great band names have become at risk of falling back into a pack they once – if not spearheaded – then certainly played a lieutenant’s role in. There wasn’t so many bands doing it when they first made their name, but Fine Lines is pitched into a rarely forgiving ecosystem of bands bringing big rock riffs, neo-classical flourishes and playfulness to post-rock’s textural wheelhouse.

Luckily any such worries that they might have dropped out of contention are put to rest straight away. They may not really have the explosive theatrics or twiddly fireworks of some, but ‘Rock By Numbers’ – instrumental bands can get away with all sorts of impishness when it comes to naming tracks – somehow maintains its almost monolithic structure while simultaneously attempting to diversify in several directions, robot vocal loops bringing in menacing, meaty riffs on both guitar and careering synth. Following that ‘Last March Of The Acolytes’ is even better because it isn’t bigger. It’s where the Rock re-establish their compositional credentials as a band capable of pulling together suites of beauty and power in equal measure without unnecessary drifting or bombast, making quiet-loud dynamics work for them with genuine elegance and affection. Intricate interlocking guitar patterns and passages of strings from some imagined Clint Mansell score build up and break down before a percussive torrent crescendo brings the curtain down.

It subsequently turns out the band have played their two aces straight away, but there’s still plenty of invention and sonic manipulation to come in what by genre standards is a short sprint of an album. The skittering beats of ’3 Days’ are math-rock rhythms as redesigned by Tortoise with extra cello, ‘Something’s Wrong With The TV Generation’ flits from slowcore minimalism to purging noise making all with a certain elegance intact, while ‘The Goddamn Remote’ plays off the kind of post-prog John Carpenter horror soundtrack scores the likes of Zombie-Zombie have taken in their own direction, needling analogue synths bringing along a guitar army marching theme alongside a rush of sawing strings. Just when you feel reminded of fellow Oxford-based early 00s travellers Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia, their monologuist Emily Gray turns up on short ambient filler ‘Happy With What You’re Given’.

In contrast to some of their more celebrated current running mates in the instrumental section some would have labelled entirely as post-rock, The Rock Of Travolta don’t do pat quiet-loud-crescendo dynamics. They may drink from many of the same influence wells but their songs never feel like feedback catharsis for the sake of it, and even when they do crescendo it’s not for long, preferring the point at which classicist arrangements meet amped-up building tension. It’s not ‘just more instrumental noise’, it inhabits its own dynamic range and backlog of ideas that intuitively knows how to break down to intricate component parts and when to let fly. They haven’t lost it.