EOIN BUTLER's guide to downloads, singles and free audiostreams

VILLAGERS

Ship of PromisesDomino

The second official single from his Becoming a Jackalalbum is Conor J O'Brien's strongest, fiercest and most impressive offering to date. The instrumental coda seems to have been chopped for the radio edit, incidentally, which is rather a shame.

TIRED PONY

Dead American WritersFiction

Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody has assembled an accomplished group of players – among them Peter Buck, Jacknife Lee and Editors' Tom Smith – for this his long-touted "country" side project. (Actually, it's indie rock, with only the faintest Nashville twang; think the Pernice Brothers or Silver Jews.) On this evidence, the collaboration has failed to sparkle. An album, The Place We Ran From, follows on July 9th.

PLAN B

Prayin'679/Atlantic

The latest instalment of Plan B's Defamation of Strickland Bankssaga finds our hero caught up in a prison knife fight. Essentially, this is a Ray Winstone film masquerading as a pop single. The "plot" is torturously complicated and the song itself not especially memorable. But the audacity of Ben Drew in even attempting something so ambitious has got to be admired.

CRYSTAL CASTLES

CelesticaFiction

Canada’s least happy-go- lucky electronica duo visit a graveyard on this single from their excellent eponymous second album. Hopes that Alice Glass might be about to lighten up anytime soon, then, were doomed from the outset.

DIANA VICKERS

The Boy Who Murdered LoveRCA

The X Factor starlet is famously a graduate of the Dolores O’Riordan School of Irritating Vocal Mannerisms. But even by her own high standards, Vickers pushes the boat out here. By the end she sounds like a foghorn trapped in a revolving door.