Kevin Courtney's guide to singles, downloads and free audiostreams

REPUBLIC OF LOOSE
I Like Music Loaded Dice Records ****

Precisely what flavour of muzak should we be expecting on the Loose's third album? This excellent taster opens with an odd piano riff and a story about a (rather materialistic) honey who just happens to work in the bank. It morphs into a stomping defence of sticking with the job you love regardless of the financial consequences. It also confirms that, in terms of ambition and execution, the Loose are still light years ahead of the competition.

LAST SHADOW PUPPETS
The Age of Understatement Domino ****

"As big as Mother Russia" is how director Romain Gavras describes the video for Understatement, a collaboration between Arctic Monkey's Alex Turner and Rascals' Miles Kane. The video features the intrepid duo whizzing across the frozen steppe on a fleet of tanks, looking like the Beatles for Sale-era Fab Four and sounding like Scott Walker produced by Ennio Morricone. No understatement here, then.

The follow-up to Chasing Pavements, this London teenager's second single has all the makings of another big hit. The intro is startlingly similar to Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy, but the song is just too MOR for this critic's tastes.

The Beginning of the Twist? Or could it in fact be the beginning of the end? First the Sunderland quartet were dropped by their record label. Now their comeback single stubbornly refuses to work on my CD player. Liam Miller has better odds of staging a comeback, on this evidence.

The Sheffield art rockers' debut album got some critical notice but the sales didn't quite set the world on fire. So, on their comeback single, 2006's hottest tips have gone all disco on us. "Everything I touch, everything I touch," Kate Jackson purrs enigmatically on the chorus. But, mainstream success is likely to remain just out of reach.