Melin Melyn

• More wows from Wandering Oak here  •

Melin Melyn are more than just a band. They’re world-builders; storytellers absorbing various elements of the increasingly strange times around us and using them to create fables that ruminate on grief, love, and hope.

 

Their debut album Mill On The Hill sees the band jump between surf-rock, country, prog-rock and psychedelia with the grace and skill of a band with numerous records under their belt, held together by an efficacious and fantastical thematic principle. Melin Melyn translates to ‘Yellow Mill’ in Welsh, and on this album the Welsh six-piece invite the audience into the world they have quite literally built around them. Mill On The Hill transports the listeners to the utopian ‘Melin Village’, a Seussian world where townsfolk “bask in the beauty of song.” Enter our protagonists, the six millers who work at the titular mill on the hill, powered by the music that they create:

 

Formed in 2019 by Gruff Glyn (lead vocals, guitar, saxophone) Will Barratt (lead guitar), Cai Dyfan (drums) and Garmon Rhys (bass, backing vocals and who also performs as The Mighty Observer) the band was Gruff’s first proper musical project. After a year or so performing as a foursome, the band were soon joined by Rhodri Brooks (pedal steel) and Dylan Morgan (keys), stalwarts of the Welsh music scene with their solo works AhGeeBe and DD Darillo, as well as their works with Novo Amor & Boy Azooga respectively, adding further gravitas and completing the sound that the band had been looking for.

 

The release of debut EP Blomonj caught immediate attention from UK press, with NME & The Independent naming them as an artist to watch, and venerable UK DJ Marc Riley championed them across BBC 6Music. Soon to follow was 2022’s ‘Happy Gathering’, the band’s second EP which garnered more media attention and allowed the band to embark on their first headline tour of the UK, selling out venues both in their home country of Wales, as well as England.

 

2023’s one-off single I Paint Dogs, allowed the band to work with esteemed director and writer of Borat, Flight Of The Conchords, The Muppets and more in James Bobin, and this year saw the band road-testing new music at festivals such as Eurosonic, Deer Shed, Bearded Theory, Wilderness & Future Now to name but a few.

 

This isn’t the first time Melin Melyn have turned their art into a narrative arc. Their 2023 headline UK tour saw the members perform as employees of the Jolly Baskets Supermarket Store located in Melin Village. But after it’s sad & sudden closure, they have now returned to what they know best - making music. Mill On The Hill sits somewhere between concept album and Lynchian musical theatre show, with elements of its loose narrative spilling into their live shows that have been acclaimed by The Guardian, The I, The Financial Times and many more.

 

“Croeso! Welcome, one and all to the magical world of the Mill On The Hill. The yellow mill that sits on top of a hill, looking down on Melin Village and all of its wonderful occupants. Everyone is welcome here.” says Chief Miller Gruff. “Don’t be deceived, this is no ordinary mill. Our duty is to create music inside the mill for all the occupants of Melin Village, and anyone else who’d like to listen. Because, after all, who could imagine a world without music?”

 

First single Vitamin D, released earlier this year, is trademark Melin Melyn: sunny, surf-rock instrumentation, but with dark, thought provoking lyricism. “Ah, a bit of Vitamin D on a sunny day. Pretty essential for most of us, right? Not for the protagonist of this song, who’s fallen head over heels for a computer character called Annie.

But what’s the point of catching some rays when you can stay inside in your dark room until the early hours of the morning, immersed in a virtual world with your one and only? Don’t you dare question the authenticity of his romance though, or you’ll end up in a coffin … like his mother.”

 

Fantastic Food - potentially Melin Melyn’s most ambitious song to date - is a five minute prog-rock epic, switching between time signatures and genres at breakneck pace, whilst chewing the fat on love and existential loneliness. Put simply, the band is showcasing that they really can do whatever they put their mind to. Speaking on the song, Deputy Miller Garmon adds: “On Fantastic Food we explore the desperate lengths we’re willing to go to in order to find love & the frantic inner monologues that accompany us on our quest for intimacy, all while eating existential crises-inducing spicy foods. Delicious.”

 

Promised Land is a moment of melancholic beauty on the album. Melin Melyn trade their whimsical absurdism for an earnest country ballad that asks the tough questions, inspired by a young ballet dancer, desperately trying to dance her way out of poverty. “During the day, she performs with a smile on her face. At night she sleeps on bare boards with rats nibbling at her feet.” Its ending transmutes into a beautiful pairing of ambient guitar and pedal steel, the band leaving no genre or soundscape untouched on their quest to be undefined by genre. “All this ballet dancer craves is somewhere that will offer her safety, serenity and security. But where could that be? How could she get there?”

 

One place, the band suggests, is the titular Mill On The Hill. “It’s not perfect - what is? But to us it represents a creative hub, with all members working together, in order to compute what is outside. It’s not running away, but it’s a safe space for everyone to come.”

 

The album’s second half examines these darker themes further. The Pigeon & The Golden Egg is a raucous crowd pleaser that rallies against sentimental jargon on fridge magnets and pillows, the empty suggestions of “chin up, man up, live laugh love”. 18-30 investigates the ritualistic industry of shipping young people off to tropical islands once they’ve escaped the confines of systemic education; an introspective contra-anthem to any feral summer or apocalyptic booze cruise. Running On MT is a straight up country bonanza, tailor-made for line-dancing and yeehawing at live shows. Its protagonist adorns their best Johnny Cash impression in a final, climactic hoedown as they desperately submit to the absurdities of the world.

 

On Mill On The Hill, Melin Melyn offer both respite & reflection. Hang up your coat, kick off your shoes, and join the millers on a saga of sonic escapism.