This is the first attempt to take Cardiff’s musical temperature since 2006’s ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The 22 Of Us’, the sprawling snapshot that emerged for the darkroom of Twisted By Design’s indie disco. Whereas that compilation found room for the twee and the shambolic amongst the indie spectrum, the music on ‘ZeroYears’ is an impressive, gleaming, weirdly professional beast, 14 songs that either show how advanced low budget recording has become or shine a spotlight on the area’s more polished acts. I think my favourite thing about this album is that if feels completely personal: there’s some very sweet sleevenotes from the label’s Matt and Isaac, basically explaining that they really like these unsigned bands, and want to introduce them to you in the same order they discovered them. It’s an approach that’s half mixtape, half vital document, and wholly charming.

One of the two non-locals opens ‘Zero Years’, and if the Screenbeats chiming guitar rush isn’t the strongest thing here, its glossy kitchen sink rock still offers many shiny thrills. Tipsters’ choice Man Without Country weigh in the addictive ‘Closet Addicts Anonymous’, three minutes of gently creepy glitchpop that floats towards its own bulls-eye chorus. Keep your eyes on these kids. ‘Zero Years’ gravitates towards guitar abuse though and the next two songs salute instrumental note loopers, namely Oxford’s one man frets and drums botherer Theo and Cardiff’s Trans Am-worshipping Right Hand Left Hand. The former whips up a cloud of fireflies from his guitar before playfully pasting the drumkit; the latter letting the underlying motif prowl like a psycho, before it gets similarly worked over. Rude health in this corner of the world, clearly.

Anyone struggling to find fault with this compilation could point towards its tendency to favour punk and garage rock. Certainly some bands hold their own better than others: Strange News From Another Star’s agitated tramp gibberish sounds as taut and fine as ever; Kutosis’ ‘Small Cities’ is a short, smiling snotblast of fun. There’s more here than snarling though: the quieter end is well served by Elephant And Soldier’s precious, breathy ‘At Home’, which cascades nicely into a swirl of xylophone and an insistent melody line; the quiet, psychotic, twee post rock of Hail! The Planes, inhabiting some weird middleground between Mogwai and the Rosie Taylor Project; and Among Brothers’ filtered, low budget epic closer, shifting on a cloud of piano chords.

It’s a pretty positive health report. Scenes need capturing in time and the breathless music fans to do it. ‘Zero Years Of Barely Regal’ is a fine document of what’s currently buzzing.

CD available from http://barelyregalrecords.bigcartel.com/product/zero-years-of-barely-regal-compilation or download it from the usual places.