And so this Celtic fringe on the cloak of Britpop took its place on the world stage, with Catatonia and Super Furry Animals riding high.

Now, after releasing their eighth album - Hey Venus! - the Super Furries have yet again proved to be the most enduring and intently followed Welsh artists of modern times. That is, when one leaves aside the crop of glitter and chest hair the Land of Song has spawned over the decades, in the form of Charlotte Church, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones and even Shakin' Stevens - all from English-speaking backgrounds.

'It's strange when you're bilingual,' Furries bassist Pryce says. 'When we're together as a band we're conversing in Welsh purely because it's our first language and it's the most natural way for us to communicate with each other.

'Being bilingual isn't a conscious thing - although when growing up [in Cardiff] I would only speak Welsh at home or in school,' he says. 'The boys from North Wales spoke it everywhere all the time. We never really waved the flag or pushed it into people's faces ... but we also never wanted to deny where we're from.

'The English press still find it quite bizarre that there's a nation 100 miles down the road from them that speaks another language. But if we do our little bit to bring awareness of the language, I'm quite happy with that.'

Pryce says the band still smile recalling the days when they caught the ear of Creation Records supremo Alan McGee - the man behind the success of Oasis. Amid the music press hype surrounding the Cool Cymru phenomenon, he went to see one of the new Welsh bands perform in London. He was so impressed that he approached them with a deal and suggested they switch to singing in English. They had been all along.

'It was our third or fourth gig and we were pretty shambolic,' says Pryce. 'So we mightn't have even been singing at all, and he'd not have known the difference.

'Our fourth album was entirely in Welsh and we were expecting a bit of a backlash about that. But we toured it in America, Europe and Japan with no difference in sales.

'We've always felt disconnected from that Britpop thing, anyway, with its roots in 60s guitar music. Our roots were more in dance and techno, which exploded onto the scene when we were 18 or 19.

Dance music was our very own punk rock. It stuck with us and it's an experimental form of music we enjoy.'

Over the years, the Super Furries have wowed audiences, including at last year's Formoz Festival in Taiwan, with ventures into harmonic experimentalism. But Hey Venus! sees the band turn almost full circle. It's an album with catchy melodies and the sort of conceptual track choices that have drawn comparisons to the Beach Boys. Pryce is unabashed. 'We like to think out of the box and so did they. We're big Beach Boys fans and it's better than being compared to some others out there. Other albums of ours have been off-key in structure with long electronic passages, but on this we kept it simple with three-minute songs highlighting the melodies.'

Perhaps the biggest challenge awaits the Super Furries as singer and songwriter Gruff Rhys prepares the band for an orchestral collaboration, which may form a film soundtrack or a forthcoming album.

'Working with a full orchestra has always been something we wanted to do, but we found it a bit expensive,' Pryce says. 'But now Rhys has come up with some connections and he's working on arrangements with a conductor who's keen to work with us.

'We'll always have the psychedelic element and will be experimental in one way or another. So I suppose another twist would be to use an orchestra and make it sound psychedelic.'

Album sales haven't been huge, but consistent enough to allow some members of the band to live comfortably in the centre of Cardiff and others to live in London. Their two-year break from touring is interrupted only by the occasional gig, giving time for some band members to raise children.

'What's kept us going is a hardcore fan base,' Pryce says. 'We pretty much sell the same number of records, sometimes a little bit more, and have never been one of those bands that have exploded out of nothing. It probably explains why we've been around so long.'

But they were confronted with a choice that could have catapulted them into the rock millionaire bracket overnight if it wasn't for a consciousness-stirring trip to visit trade unionists in Colombia.

Representatives of a soft drinks company had put together trial advertising campaigns centred on the Super Furry track Hello Sunshine, and then approached the band with an offer of a seven-figure deal.

Grave reservations about allegations of violence and kidnapping by paramilitaries with links to multinationals in Colombia forced the Furries to pull the plug on instant riches.

'We just couldn't do it in the end,' Pryce says. 'They just hoped we'd see the money and go with it. But it would have been hypocritical to take money off the corporate world with one hand while criticising it in our songs with the other.

'Hopefully, the longevity of the band will be our fortune, and not a quick buck.'

As well as young families, solo studio projects are keeping the Super Furries busy. Pryce was invited by Trojan to select a compilation of his favourite reggae tracks. Rhys is said to be 'constantly busy' - so much so that he needs to get his music out on solo albums.

As for that dark building in downtown Cardiff near the rugby stadium where so much of it all happened: 'We played four gigs there recently just to get in shape. Guys find their wives there, bands still get formed there. I've got a love-hate relationship with the place, even though I go once a week.'

Hey Venus! is out now