Various Artists – Sea Monsters 2

Brighton’s One Inch Badge follow last year’s Sea Monsters scene sampler with Sea Monsters 2, and like most sequels, it’s a bulkier beast. By adding an extra forty minutes of music and splitting the collection across double the discs, the label gives itself even more space to brag about their home town’s musical wares. While they don’t necessarily tick all genre boxes, they’ve squeezed in representatives of an impressively broad range, from twee-minded shoegaze to throaty sludge-rock.

There’re more highlights than we’ve space to blether about, but special mentions go to Tyrannosaurus Dead (who serve up fizzy fuzz-rocker 1992), Reslesslist (epic, kraut-prog instrumental Magma) and Heliopause (the gentle Try to Lose). Meanwhile, Us Baby Bear Bones win ‘most improved Sea Monster’, with this year’s contribution distinctively more promising than last’s. There are, naturally, less inspired acts bringing the collection down a peg or two, but as a single-city snapshot, it’s impressively vibrant.