Deg | 10

By way of celebrating ten years since the release of their debut, Bling, the Welsh quintet have compiled this largely chronological collection of 11 tracks from four studio albums, plus three new songs, a couple of live recordings and two remixes of previous singles, which are more than mere tinkering. It's a generous package for both devotees and newcomers. The band have long since passed the stage when it was obligatory to comment on their youth and their apparently brash and reckless championing of traditional Welsh music. But the structure of this collection inevitably lends itself to admiring the spectacular growth in their confidence and daring. To travel so apparently effortlessly, from 2008's relatively straightforward opener ‘Calan’ via the swirling ‘Tale of Two Dragons’ from 2015 to last year's stirring ‘Iron Town’ based on a story from the Chartist uprising of 1839, makes for quite a journey. They are a band that have gone far, figuratively and literally, despite the recent travel-document mishap that led to two of them spending a night in a cell at Chicago O'Hare Airport and a subsequent deportation back to the UK. It is surely a shame that said incarceration alongside an Estonian death metal band didn't end up leading to some sort of musical fusion.