Latest CD releases reviewed

Lif Up Yuh Leg an Trample Honest Jons
****

Later this month, hundreds of soca and calypso floats and bands will turn west London into a corner of the east Caribbean for a long weekend. Lif Up Yuh Leg an Trample is a whirring, demented, high-energy mish-mash of cutting-edge soca and clattering calypso tracks that are impossible to pigeonhole but damn easy to dance to. A collection of the tunes and anthems which soundtracked the last couple of seasons in Trinidad, the home of carnival, these new-school soca bangers take some cues from Jamaican ragga, tough hip-hop and sweet r 'n' b. In a world where bells and whistles go hand in hand with volume and colour, it's tracks such as the gruff anthemic splash of Dawg E. Slaughter's Trample and the infectious rubadub of Maximus Dan's Soca Train that evoke sunny days and blue skies. - Jim Carroll