Eight years from their eponymous debut, Snowdonias Yucatan release Uwch Gopa’r Mynydd (Above the Mountain Summit). The album is a love-letter to their habitat, the expanse of the wildscapes and rough-hues of the mountains and the elements.

Similar in aesthetic to mountainous compatriots Super Furry Animals and contemporaries Sigur Ros, King Creosote and The Phantom Band, this band evince a spectral, hypnagogic ambience, emanating a tautological upbeat melancholy.

The album has been streamed this week at the top of Snowdon, Waleshighest peak, and 3500ft above sea level, a world first. Led by Dilwyn Llwyd, the four-piece have attracted the attention and patronage of The Charlatans vox-mop and DIYd bleachy Dulux hairdo, Tim Burgess.

Ffin (Border) is a slow-burning number with emotive vocals and a crashing crescendo which on first listen it is hard to shake the (lazy and obvious) Super Furry Animals allusions, well, its in Welsh innit? However, this rarebit is uniquely Yucatan, building on source and crafting anew.

Cwm Llwm (Cwm Valley) has tinkling nursey-chimes and is a classic example of how mood music is put to images to enhance the experience from a drowning vole to a wailing soul whos lost the egg and spoon race. Dear BBC Sport Editors, Im getting Ennis-Hill in Bronze come-down vibes for 2016. The plodding piano reminds of U2s With or without you fortunately without Bonos preachy earnestness.

Word Song is cacophonic, a smattering of distinctly phlegmatic Welsh tones, instruments and noise that wholly is uproarious and affecting. Halen Daear a Swn Y Mor (Salty ground and the noise of the sea) has a horn section similar to the Welsh-born Julian Copes Teardrop Explodes alumnus, in the words of Cope himself its all ethereal.

The onomatopoeic Ochenaid (Sigh) finds Llwyds delivery exhaled to a backdrop of shimmering instrumentation, it is both weary and uplifting, bleakly bright with a strident finale. lyn Tawelwch (Lake Silence) is a celebratory rock-out to nature, triumph and wonderment a contrats to the suburban sprawl at play across the greenbelt.

The eponymous Uwch Gopar Mynydd closes the suite in elegiac fashion and acts as a reminder to power-saps like Coldplay that piano-led soundscapes dont necessarily have to be listened to with an umbrella, this is melancholy as a force of rejuvenation. With music this good lyrics are not necessary, the imagination is inspired by the wall of sound. This is an album created by and required to listened to via osmosis, a sensory gateway into the Snowdonia region and into an-other, nether-world. Gwrando ar uchel (Listen to loud).

Kemper Boyd

@dissapointon