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.

Santa Cruz, CA's seminal punk veterans Good Riddance are back with their 7th full-length album entitled My Republic. this latest and most fervent recording to date saw the band reuniting not only with punk producers extraordinaire Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore (Rise Against, Anti-Flag, NOFX), but with former drummer Sean Sellers as well. the result will undoubtedly go down as the quintessential Good Riddance album and is sure to become a classic representation of the California punk sound. Driven by soulful passion and political savvy, My Republic is sure to satisfy Good Riddance fans everywhere with Luke Pabich's blazing guitars, Chuck Platt's pounding bass and Sean Seller's thundering drums, all of which are complemented by vocalist/songwriter Russ Rankin's biting social commentary and melodic personal refrains.

Cadence vs Hugo Varvoglis", the cut that closes Fleur de Lily, has been transformed into the ghostly centerpiece of the Carbon Lily Remixes by Greek dance-music auteur Hugo Varvoglis. This set of inspired reinterpretations of Fleur de Lily songs features mixes from nations all over the world - an appropriate gesture, considering Dalton's timely subject matter. Varvoglis is the star of the set, though: he's reworked four Fleur tracks, and it's his ethereal and propulsive drum and synth programming that gives Carbon Lily so much of its delicate-yet-dangerous character.

Justin Staggs (NOFX, The Soviettes, Strike Anywhere) makes videos that are dark fantasies - he loves to set iconic images against black backdrops, and juxtapose these with images of attractive performers in action. Here, the winsome Dalton provides the beautiful face, and Staggs does the rest. Well, that's not entirely accurate - Dalton has lovely hands, too, and the "Cadence vs Hugo Varvoglis" clip contains plenty of over-the-shoulder shots of the young pianist at work. The room around her is abuzz with sinister and enchanted life: cardboard moths flicker around a suspended lightbulb and a single candle, marionettes shake to attention and then hang, hunched over and poised for their strings to be pulled by an unseen hand. Stuffed animals float from the floor to the ceiling, and surround a masked ballerina as she pirouettes in place. It's all a bit like a young girl's toybox gone mad: childhood memories animated by ghostly rhythms.

If you thought that Sixpence None The Richer's "Kiss Me" was condemned to lite-radio purgatory, guess again: it turns out that it was always a punk song waiting for NFG to unlock its potential. They've paired it with a video that feels like a pure celebration - beautiful young people constructing a stage and an outdoor fortress out of old mattresses. New Found Glory plays in the makeshift structure, and sings these lyrics about bearded barley and sparkling silver moons with shocking conviction. Meanwhile, the kids are having their fun, especially one cad who takes to tallying up the girls he smooches in black magic marker on his arm (he gets his comeuppance, of course). Watch for a cameo by Paramore as well; when a party is this good, everybody wants to attend.

We are here with a raucous new clip from one of the sturdiest names in hard rock: the irrepressible Sebastian Bach. The heavy metal renaissance-man has returned to the fray with Angel Down, his toughest, proudest, most uncompromising, and most infectious set of songs yet. And considering Sebastian Bach's track record, that's saying plenty. Real fans of heavy music will recall that although Skid Row shared bills and MTV airtime with the "hair metal" bands of the Eighties and early Nineties, they never fit into that category. When the rest of Bach's peers were going unplugged, he was leading his band through stompers like "Monkey Business", "Youth Gone Wild", and the unforgettable "18 And Life". Even "I Will Remember You", the quintessential power ballad, rocked harder than most bands' heaviest cuts. When Slave To The Grind became the first heavy metal album to debut at #1 on the Billboard charts, it was a victory not for the lite-metal movement, but for true headbangers. Skid Row's thunder reached a towering crescendo on Subhuman Race, one of the most vicious and uncompromising records cut in the Nineties. Throughout, Bach and the group backed up the records with a live show unrivaled in mainstream metal for its intensity and raw energy.

Pick a musical Top Ten list for 2007 - chances are, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is on it. Few albums have ever been so warmly-received by critics and listeners as has Spoon's latest. It's been praised by mainstream magazines like Rolling Stone ("You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga placed #16 on the publication's rundown of the best songs of the year), established rock-crit websites (the album made Pitchfork's in-house Top Ten and the Top Ten of its readers), and countless webloggers and 'zinesters. The set also made an appearance in the Billboard Top Ten, thereby proving that no matter how smart, artful, and forward-looking Spoon's pop might be, it still connects with a mass audience. When we look back on 2007 in the future, Spoon's sixth LP will make a fitting soundtrack.

Now, we've turned the calendar - and the popularity of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is still growing. "Don't You Evah", the latest single, is by acclamation one of the set's highlights: a cover version of an unreleased track by NYC underground favorites (and former Spoon tourmates) The Natural History. But even though Britt Daniel didn't write this one, the song has all the hallmarks we've come to associate with his band: an insistent, funky bassline; a clever arrangement; thoughtful lyrics; inspired and tasteful electric six-string, imaginative percussion; an indelible chorus; a dash of twisted humor; and a winning, conversational performance by the vocalist. "Don't You Evah" has become a concert favorite, found its way into videogames and unofficial fan-made web-clips (including a well-circulated one featuring a dancing yellow robot), and - once again proving Spoon's versatility - even scored an episode of NBC's Chuck.

Spoon's meticulous production has helped to make the band world-famous, but they're also a fantastic performing band. So much attention has been lavished - and rightfully so - on the band's sound that it's easy to forget that they're much more than just a studio creation; in fact, the kaleidoscopic feel of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is not far removed from the experience of hearing Spoon live. In concert, they're groovy, yet economical; propulsive, but succinct; inspiring, but thoughtful. Britt Daniel can hold an audience spellbound, dash their expectations, challenge them, engage minds and feet simultaneously. The official "Don't You Evah" clip catches Spoon onstage, backstage, in the band van, getting to a gig, communicating with packed houses of listeners. The message is clear: Spoon's songwriting and arrangement architecture may be sophisticated, but it's also as organic as any band's.

Britt Daniel is the focus of the "Don't You Evah" video, but he's not the star: this is a group effort, and it's shot that way. As much attention is paid to drummer Jim Eno's shaker as the frontman's six-string. Under a wash of purple and blue light, the group becomes more than a collection of individuals anyway - they're a colorful force, bringing their indie-funk to vivid life. Shots of the band on a crowded city street and in the green-room of the club give the viewer a glimpse into Spoon's camaraderie and mutual respect. They walk to the show together; black silhouettes carrying instruments through the urban night; a tight unit in all senses; prepared for broadcast.

Then again, The Exies have always been independents at heart; they're a band unafraid to take risks and make bold moves. For instance, their second 2007 single isn't an album cut at all - it's an Internet-only release, and it's accompanied by an incendiary clip that's already become a sensation on video-sharing sites like YouTube. "God We Look Good (Going Down In Flames)" is a gutsy broadside against the state of contemporary media, a critique of celebrity culture, and a savaging of that which passes for political discourse on the modern airwaves. We have, Stevens seems to be suggesting, lost our nerve at a crucial moment, and we've become distracted by sideshows. "This is the pill, the pill that we swallow," he howls, his reference to The Matrix evident, "the death of us all, the cash, the kill - they're selling us off to make the deal."

The video for "God We Look Good (Going Down In Flames)" is similarly confrontational - and similarly unapologetic. Images flash by, one after another, none lingering on the screen for more than a second. It's like channel-surfing on speed, and at this rate, every shot projected becomes near-subliminal and loaded with meaning. But none of the footage assembled by The Exies will feel unfamiliar to anybody who's got a television: we're shown the faces of complicit politicians, shots of violence, sex, weeping celebrities carted off to prison, missiles, dollar signs, works of fine art, religious symbols, guns. The words "are you ready to go?" and "sell out" struggle to surface; they're a message fighting its way through the chaos. Stevens, too, breaks into the frame from time to time, and he forces his way straight up to the camera to deliver his accusation, as if he's besieged on all sides and wants to make sure he's getting his message across. He grabs the attention of the lens and hangs on to his connection with his audience while he can, like a pit bull with its prey in its mouth. But the tilt-a-whirl of images rushes on, oblivious to objection and seemingly beyond control. Who cycles through these channels, and who stands behind the rush of content that now fills the televised airwaves? The implication here is that nobody is in control: that, instead, we're all being washed downstream by a torrent of meaningless news and gossip, one greased by money and power but generated and perpetuated by its own sick momentum.