Shuffle

Eoin Butler'sguide to singles, downloads and free audiostreams

LOS CAMPESINOS!
My Year in Lists
Wichita
****
On which the Welsh indie scamps come over like the Arcade Fire's deranged grandkids. Granted, it's not as catchy as last year's (insanely catchy) You! Me! Dancing! And April is rather an odd month to release a song about New Year's resolutions. But who cares? This is brilliant.

BRITNEY SPEARS
Break the Ice
Jive
***
Oh come Britney, don't be bashful. Surely the ice was broken the time you jumped out of that people carrier with no knickers on.

PORTISHEAD
Machine Gun
Island
****
Portishead are back and packin' heat. Machine Gun boasts none of the sumptuous production values one might have expected, given the Bristol duo's 1990s output, or Beth Gibbons' solo work with Rustin Man. Instead this is lean, sparse and growling with menace. Definitely a grower.

GAY FOR JOHNNY DEPP
Belief in God Is So Adorable
Captains of Industry
*
Homoerotic trash metal from NYC. If this track was one of Depp's film roles it would be his turn as Oprah Noodlemantra in Nightmare on Elm Street 6. That is to say, it's ill-conceived, clumsily executed and mercifully brief.

THE FEELING
Without You
Island
***
Alarmingly enjoyable MOR fluff, on which Dan Gillespie-Sells finds himself stranded in rainy north Virginia and wondering what the time is in London. Well, Dan, there's a five-hour time difference. So, assuming you're too homesick and/or plastered to make the necessary calculation, your friends in London are most likely tucked up in their beds by now. If you're at a loose end tomorrow, visit Colonial Williamsburg.

GEMMA HAYES
Out of Our Hands
ATC
**
The first single from the forthcoming The Hollow of the Morning album, this is being released to coincide with Hayes's upcoming Irish tour. My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields reportedly contributed some guitar parts to the album sessions, and his influence can be detected on this track. But for a comeback single, it's rather underwhelming.