We're not saying that "Soldiers" is guaranteed to have the same impact, but surely it deserves to. Its chorus is as relentlessly catchy as "Bodies" was, and the musicians in Drowning Pool have only become tighter and tougher. What's more "Soldiers" is about a serious subject: the condition of U.S. troops stationed around the world. Drowning Pool has toured military bases from Iraq to North Korea, and the members of the band have had the opportunity to interact with the men and women in the armed forces. The song is a reflection of those experiences: a channel for pride, precision, aggression, rage, and emotion.

The clip for "Soldiers" is comparably dramatic: it consists almost entirely of video footage of the band performing for the troops. And these are no small congregations either; on the contrary, the quartet roars out its songs to seas of uniformed personnel. "This is for the soldiers", McCombs screams - and a feeling of catharsis ripples through the crowd. The film is raw, rough, direct; it's got a you-are-there quality that perfectly suits Drowning Pool's uncompromising style. The band plays with abandon and ferocity, and seems to echo and amplify the pride of their listeners. Add to this connection some extremely revealing shots of soldiers at war in the desert (the kind of stuff they don't show on CNN), and you've got one of the most arresting and honest videos of 2007.

Echoes of Eternity is a progressive metal band based in Los Angeles. Their debut album The Forgotten Goddess, was released in February 2007 on Nuclear Blast records.

Eighteen Visions was an Orange County-based band, signed to Epic Records and Trustkill Records. Evolving from Metalcore to Mainstream Rock throughout the years, they broke up in April 2007.

Eskimo Joe's sound is rich, moody, and engrossing, but bassist Kavyen Temperley's skillful and articulate songwriting is the best weapon in the band's arsenal. Temperley thinks conceptually: A Song Is A City, the band's breakthrough album, is a nuanced and provocative exploration of his hometown of Fremantle, Australia. Through song and story, he captured the strange tensions between cosmopolitan living and geographic isolation so common on the Aussie West Coast; listeners around the country identified, and rewarded the band with their first hit disc. Black Fingernails, Red Wine, by contrast, was a conscious attempt to broaden and streamline the Eskimo Joe approach, and to incorporate elements associated with Eighties rock. Just as he did with The Sleepy Jackson - another Perth-area band that has made international waves - producer Matt Lovell has delivered a polished, radio-ready sound that sacrifices none of the integrity or identity of the band. Old fans adored Black Fingernails, Red Wine, and new fans were made by the thousands: while A Song Is A City went platinum in Australia, the latest Eskimo Joe release has sold four times more.

Video director Nash Edgerton is almost as well-recognized Down Under as the members Eskimo Joe are: he's an actor and performer as well as a filmmaker, and his recently-released first feature was a hit at the Sydney Film Festival. Edgerton has shot clips for many of Australia's finest, including Toni Collette, The Sleepy Jackson, and Ben Lee. For the "Black Fingernails, Red Wine" spot, the young director has taken a dramatic (and black comic) approach: it's a dark night in Western Australia, and the three Joes are out on a kidnapping spree. We watch Temperley and his two bandmates abduct three men, and shove them in the trunk of a vintage automobile; later, as the song arrives at its false ending, they strike the business ends of their spades into fresh earth. They're burying bodies tonight - but whose? All is revealed when the well-dressed musicians pop the boot and Edgerton swings his camera on the faces of the victims: they're Eskimo Joe, or to be more precise, a prior version of Eskimo Joe that's now defunct. Temperley and company have hijacked their own history, forcibly seized it, and sent it into the ground. No clearer metaphor for a band's reinvention has ever been committed to videotape!

The Radical Friend production team - Kirby McClure and Julia Gregorian - understand that archetypes and folk-imagery speak louder than special effects ever can. They work in broad strokes and bright colors, matching offbeat material with fairy-tales and oddly quotidian hallucinations. Their clip for "Requiem For O.M.M.2" by Of Montreal was a love-story between a knight and his missing sword. There's a sword and a knight in the Favourite Sons clip for "Pistols & Girls", too - but this one is no cartoon. Instead, the video for the Brooklyn band's single features live-action melee between a hipster artist-paladin and a dragon of his own creation.

It's an appropriate short for Favourite Sons, a quintet led by an indie-rock stalwart who has been questing for the perfect hybrid of pop, rock, psychedelia, acoustic folk, and stark, Factory Records-inspired weirdness for more than a decade. Ken Griffin first caught the attention of the record-buying public as the guitarist and frontman for Rollerskate Skinny, whose 1996 album Horsedrawn Wishes is now acknowledged as an underground neo-psych classic. No surprise, then, that rock critics have rushed to praise Favourite Sons - Griffin's new collaboration with former members of Philly-based Aspera. "Should you be in search of another pop band that will steal your rock and roll heart as much as Echo & The Bunnymen and The Church did throughout the 1980s heyday of romantic post-punk", raves Mackenzie Wilson in the All Music Guide, "then the Favourite Sons should leave you swooning in no time." Down Beside Your Beauty, their startling debut, flirts with Cure-style new wave and Morrissey goth-pop, but will remind listeners most of Rollerskate Skinny's sharp, focused songwriting and Kid Silver's spooky intimacy. On "Pistols & Girls", the lead single, the emphasis is placed on the gigantic beat and Griffin's deep, pained, and powerful vocals. His singing has often been liked to that of Iggy Pop, and on Down Beside Your Beauty, he lives up to that lofty comparison.

"The Bleeding" only hints at the pure, pounding fury of upcoming The Way Of The Fist. Produced by Stevo "Shotgun" Bruno (Motley Crue), Mike Sarkysian (Spineshank) and Logan Mader (Machine Head), the debut album is a bone-crunching amalgam of classic and contemporary metal styles. "It was important", explains the band "that everyone involved at any stage of this recording was a diehard metalhead." The lead single is the most melodic and radio-friendly track on the set - but it possesses a grim and austere potency all its own, and Bradley Scott's courageous and descriptive video makes that power manifest for viewers.

But first, he wants to make sure he shows us the band. Five Finger Death Punch are an impressive-looking stage act - big beards, tattoos, and muscles - and they sing and play with great authority and purpose. Scott weaves a tragic story between the performance shots: a tale of loss and love gone wrong. Ivan Moody plays the protagonist; we watch him walk down the street where he lives, dodging the menacing looks of his neighbors. From there, we flash back to scenes of better times - he and his girlfriend, drinking with his bandmates, having sex, smiling at each other. But a quarrel tears through this idyllic scene: mascara is smeared, bottles are broken. When the story reaches its frightening conclusion, Scott and Five Finger Death Punch envelop the viewer in waves of anguish and remorse. Powerful stuff, indeed!

Paul Fedor is the perfect director to animate Lacey Mosley's visions - he's worked with Marilyn Manson, P.O.D., and 30 Seconds To Mars, so he knows a fair bit about that infrequently-visited intersection between the secular and the divine. His is a dark vision, but there's something redemptive about it, too. The Parsons-educated Fedor is a painter and illustrator as well as a videomaker, and like many directors who straddle the divide between commercial and fine arts, he's interested in pushing boundaries. He also, apparently, has a storehouse full of paint. The "All Around Me" clip finds Flyleaf performing in an entirely white room - even their clothing, musical instruments, and amplifiers are bright white. Mosley alone wears a grey dress; barefoot, she dances across the floor in a kind of reverie. This scene holds until the heavy guitars kick in - then, colored paint begins to pour in streams from the top of the wall. The first rush is bright red, but other hues follow, and by the time the song has reached its chorus, the room is stained like an artist's easel. The paint coats the clothing of the bandmembers; it sprays onto Mosley's dress; and before the clip is done, Flyleaf has become a live-action canvas, themselves a chaotic, vibrant work of art.