It’s time to reflect on the year in music! This month, we’ll be highlighting Jam of Today’s favourite albums of 2025. Working our way up to the #1 album, which will be revealed on the 31st of December, we’ll go one by one past this year’s favourites. Today, our #15: ‘Mill On The Hill‘ by Melin Melyn.

Almost two years ago now, I first got to know Melin Melyn: a Cardiff based band creating what could best be described as a cocktail of pyschedelic indie pop. Pretty much as if KEG, The Divine Comedy, and Gruff Rhys were in an artsy love triangle and gave birth to a Welsh music child. As of 2025, the jolly Welshmen have released their hilariously entertaining debut album ‘Mill On The Hill’ to which I took way more of a liking than I initially thought.

Filled with wit and joy, today’s album easily makes for one of the most pleasant ones in my End of the Year list. Throughout the years, I got to know Melin Melyn as a band that’s an absolute joy to listen to and watch perform. Since I was lucky enough to visit two of their showcases during Eurosonic 2024, I got a first hand experience of the Melin Melyn show and let me tell you one thing: it was a true delight. After this, I quickly picked up on the band’s music and haven’t looked back ever since. Not always do I feel like listening to this overly happy-go-lucky Welsh variant of sunshine inspired pop but when I do, ‘Mill On The Hill’ is the ultimate piece of content to bring a smile upon my face. Even if the meaning behind this cheerfulness isn’t all as rose-coloured as it seems.

Melin Melyn (meaning ‘yellow mill’ in Welsh) has written ‘Mill On The Hill’ as a concept album about a magical yellow mill on a hill, its workers (the band members) creating music for the utopian Melin Village and by doing so, providing tons of happiness to the community. Sadly, a greedy landlord from a city nearby is threatening to plonk a car park on top of the mill for which this unique feature has to be ruined and therefore the happiness it brings will disappear, too! This fairytale serves as one of many playful metaphors we find on the album, mainly focusing on the loss of culture and local businesses due to mass commercialisation. A humorous approach to serious issues, something Melin Melyn has fully endorsed and made their own. It’s a delight. As the band said themselves in an interview with DIY Magazine earlier this year, there’s only so much angry post-punk you can listen to before it gets a bit boring. ‘Mill On The Hill’ has an equally as strong of a message, just the entire opposite way of addressing it which is probably why it works so surprisingly well.

Surprising for me too, since I’m usually not all that crazy about this type of music. This album, however, is a delight left right and centre. It has funny lyrics delivered by an extremely sensible sounding singer in Gruff Glyn, as well as really diverse music throughout the entirety of the thing. ‘Mill On The Hill’ is a strong debut all the way through, kicking off with former Jams ‘Vitamin D’ and ‘Promised Land’ and cruising to its somewhat melancholic ending via Welsh songs ‘Dail’ and ’18-30’, which are separated by another former Jam in ‘The Pigeon & The Golden Egg’ and a clever reprise halfway through the album which is basically just summing up the entire album. Without spoiling too much of the fun, ‘Mill On The Hill’ is a hilarious concept album with a serious undertone, made excellent by the band’s authenticity and lack of pretentiousness: an absolute must listen.