Melancholia is an art. The dichotomy of every broken heart is a genuine will for joy; the memory of happiness and the crippling possibilities of hope, stirred up with your sadness. This is what makes the difference between blind misery and beautiful gloom, and this is what makes An Intimate Universe so lovely. It is an album of glorious melancholy; a dark world, with delicate, glistening peaks.

Wellyn open with the lullaby of Easy. Nedd Jones' sings with clear notes and crushing vulnerability, while a finger-picked acoustic guitar ripples slowly around him. Gradually a second guitar creeps in, and the subtle notes of bass chase the low end of the melody, then the rhythm guitar kicks in and the drums burst into life, while Jones pulls up out of his world-weary crooning and fights his way to the top of the swell, takes a breath and lets the tide run out around him as he washes up on the sand. It's dynamic, but subtle, and like the ten tracks that follow, it never sacrifices arrangement for emotion, or emotion for arrangement. Everything hangs together beautifully.

And these are wonderful songs. Beneath the crooning voices of bit players, the warm pool of piano notes and the calm competition of guitars, there are haunting melodies. They cut through like fairytales; simple things with surprising depth that are immediately familiar. There are epic ghosts in Giant Hearts Amongst Thieves and anthemic heartache in The Tear That Escaped From Our Eyes, two magnificent tunes on a near perfect album.

With five key players and over 20 guest musicians (including Ned Collette, Dan Kelly, Ollie Browne of Art of Fighting and Danny Griffith of SubAudible Hum), Wellyn's long-awaited debut has a palpable maturity. The band has existed, in various guises, for almost six years, and the slow-burning birth of their first record has given them an incredible clarity of vision. When The White House begins, the undisputed diamond at the heart of An Intimate Universe, it's as though time slows down for a second. And you know – you are absolutely certain – that this extraordinary band know exactly what they're doing.