International Velvet by Catatonia

International Velvet, Catatonia's second album, landed on Blanco y Negro at the start of 1998 and shoved the Welsh band out of the clubs and into the spotlight, with Cerys Matthews and her husky, swooping voice front and center. Mark Roberts, who started the band with Matthews in 1992, shares guitars with Owen Powell, with Paul Jones on bass and Aled Richards on drums, and together they make big, bright, cheeky guitar pop with a poet's way with a metaphor.

It went to number one in Britain, sold 900,000 copies and earned a Mercury Music Prize nomination. "Mulder and Scully", out within two weeks of the album, and "Road Rage" both went top 10, with "I Am the Mob", "Game On" and "Strange Glue" coming after. The title track later rang out at the opening of the 1999 Rugby World Cup in Cardiff, proof of how firmly this record planted Catatonia at the heart of Cool Cymru.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.