When all's said and done in the grand scheme of things, what is post-rock exactly meant to be anyway?

Over the years it seems to have descended into something as drab and formulaic as a new Coldplay** record, so I propose that here and now is the time to stop referring to anything that stands out as being way and above the most obvious reference points of what was supposed to be the anti-generic genre anyway post bloody rock.

For the last 18 months or so, Lyca Sleep have been honing their sound around the bathroom sized establishments of the UK, picking up a devoted band of followers along the way. If their previous single hinted at what could be achieved if they found the right producer (step forward Ric Peet) with the right studio, then 'Closer In' is a prestigious document of the band's live effervescence translated onto the outlet of a 3" plastic coated disc. The mesmeric qualities of Rob Marshall's glissandi-like guitar textures ebb and flow like a burgeoning rivulet before it merges with the cascading tide. It's a wholly vivacious affair that simply usurps any of it's contemporaries. A 'Gravity Grave' for the new millennium? You bet.

Unlike most other 45s, the b-sides are equally as exhilerating, and more to the point, totally unique in style and structure in that one could almost envisage a Lyca Sleep triumverate emerging as a result.

'Falling On Cedars' is an opulant slice of melancholia that recalls Elbow at their most graciously humble best, while 'Inches Of Air' is a six-minute instrumental myriad of flair and dynamicism that belies the term jam and simply encapsulates the smouldering dramatics within the Sleep's array of sounds.

All in all, this EP captures Lyca Sleep at their most sensuous but unravelled, incessant best.