Island Fire Riddim – Various Artists

Island Fire Riddim comes in as a compact, waist-moving soca set with just five vocals and a version cut, and that lean tracklist keeps the focus on the groove. Barry’s “Hot Up Di Scene” and Marley Palmer’s “Wine And Bubble” do the early heavy lifting, while Matthew Greenidge’s “Bumper” and Zion’s “Fire Wine” push the riddim into full carnival mode. The production, credited broadly to Various Artists, has that bright, heat-up-the-road feel that sits somewhere between party tune and roadside jump-up, with “Bacannal” from Soul adding a final burst of mischief before the instrumental closes it out. It feels like the kind of 2012 soca project that sits a little looser than a polished festival package, which gives it some charm, and it lands neatly among the smaller, dance-floor-first riddims in the year’s soca catalogue.