Ireland’s Villagers — aka Conor O’Brien — subverted expectations by going off-kilter and Protools-heavy on his 2012 sophomore set Awayland. Now he’s gone… not back per se, but a bit more linear in the tunes’ narratives: live and acoustic, calm with the right amount of focused restlessness. It’s a bold step forward, I say, given the way he builds on simple chords and poeticizes an accepted term, all while basking in some lovely melodic humility. The album is called Darling Arithmetic, and there’s another impressive preview cut up.