They've had some of the biggest hits of the alternative era - "Dose", "Take A Picture", "Where Do We Go From Here?", the controversial "Hey Man, Nice Shot" just to name a few - and their characteristic fusion of industrial music and anthemic hard rock has made them a massive concert draw and a commercial-radio staple. They've collaborated with Trent Reznor, The Crystal Method, D'Arcy Wretzky from the Smashing Pumpkins, among many others. But none of that is what we respect the most about Filter. We respect Filter for their guts, their outspokenness, and their willingness to tackle difficult subjects in their rough-edged rock songs. A band whose lead single concerned the televised suicide of Philadelphia politician Budd Dwyer is not likely to shy away from tough language and provocative sentiments.

And as Filter's career has progressed, their statements have become bolder, more confrontational, and more articulate. Songs on The Amalgamut, their 2002 release, addressed addiction, the Columbine shootings, prison, false patriotism, and the 9/11 attacks on America. Anthems For The Damned, their latest release, picks up where the last album left off - singer Richard Patrick writes candidly about rampant militarism, the culture of violence, and his own experiences in alcohol rehabilitation. The album is appropriately-titled: these are huge cinematic-sounding productions, rafter-raising and inspiring, in spite of (and sometimes because of) the dark tone.

The band's critiques of modern society are sharp, but wouldn't stick if they weren't delivered with such conviction and power. Richard Patrick's voice has always had a lunatic authority to it; on Anthems For The Damned, it soars through these mixes like a guided missile. As always, his vocals are spot-welded onto edgy, bracing tracks - crammed with distorted guitar, piston-pumping bass, and experimental electronics. That said, "Soldiers Of Misfortune" may be the most immediately accessible and appealing thing they've ever recorded: a piece of concrete-solid modern rock with an undeniable chorus and a magnificent performance by the animated Patrick.

And don't get the wrong idea: this track may be radio-ready, but the Filter frontman is as polemical as ever. Written after a Filter fan was killed in action overseas, "Soldiers Of Misfortune" is a condemnation of America's addiction to armed solutions to international problems - and a pledge of sympathy for the young combatants who pay the ultimate price. "Can't we learn from history?", bellows Patrick, before soliciting a prayer for peace from his audience. Evan Lane's clip for "Soldiers Of Misfortune" is bleak and, at times, disturbing. But the band looks terrific - as commanding as they ever did in the mid-Nineties. Lane shoots the quintet under cool blue light; Patrick is sometimes blurred and sometimes swallowed whole by the darkness, but at critical moments, his face snaps into crisp focus, and he delivers his broadsides with infectious outrage. Around the band, a sea of black, bubbly oil is brewing - and soldier-mannequins, adorned with the American flag - sink slowly into the tar. It's a visual metaphor for the military quagmire we've found ourselves stuck in, and it's particularly upsetting to see the young faces sacrificed to the hunger for oil, their faces swamped by black gold.

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.

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.

It's been five years since we last heard from Jason "Spaceman" Pierce, the electrifying, tormented, and otherworldly frontman of Spiritualized - and given the troubling subject matter of his songs, many of us had suspected the worst. Turns out that dark speculation wasn't too far from the truth: Pierce spent much of 2005 in the emergency room, trapped in a life-and-death battle with cranial infection and double pneumonia. The singer-slash-composer won the ultimate prizefight, and he's back with a new set of tales heavily informed by his protracted encounter with his own vexed mortality. Surely it's not right to find utility in the misfortune of others, but if we could pick one artist to journey to the lip of death and report on what he'd seen there, Jason Pierce would be the one.

That's because nobody sings about transcendence and altered states with more authority than Pierce does. His albums with Spiritualized are modern classics not merely because of their bold experimentation, mind-altering phasing effects, and monumental sound - they're also invariably personal, painfully honest, and deeply human. Those who've called Spiritualized a "drug" band have always missed the point (even while reveling in the group's unparalleled trippiness): Pierce's music takes the listener on a voyage beyond the limits of his own quotidian consciousness. Love, sex, religion, and pharmaceuticals are, in the hands of the writer, all metaphors - methods for attaining spiritual freedom. And freedom, as Pierce informs us in "Soul On Fire", is just another word for when you have no one left to hurt.

In interviews, Pierce promised that Songs in A&E would be the work of the Devil, and judging by the sound of "Soul On Fire", he's managed to capture the Archfiend in all of his diabolical glory. The "A&E" of the title aren't just musical keys - they also refer to the accident and emergency ward in which the singer was confined. In his cracked, conversational, and hypnotic voice, Pierce sings of a hurricane blowing through his veins: he's been to the edge, and his performance bears all the hallmarks of terrifying lived experience. Ironically, Spiritualized has never sounded any more glorious than they do here - their unprecedented and vigorous fusion of Brit-pop, space-rock, gospel, old-fashioned R&B, country, blues, and art-psych remains wholly intact here, lurid, radiant, pulsating in vibrant color.

As anybody who has ever spun Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space or Let It Come Down can testify to, Spiritualized's music often feels like a force of nature. Consequently, the bar is set high for any Spiritualized video: it must capture some of the crazed grandeur of Pierce's signature sound. We're thrilled to say that the "Soul On Fire" clip rises to the challenge - it's as breathtakingly beautiful as it is harrowing. The video finds Pierce at rest on a frozen Icelandic landscape, cheek pressed against the glacier as he sings. Wind whips a froth of snow from rocky crags behind him, and the northern lights dance in the sky overhead. Still shots of syringes and medical equipment strongly suggest that Pierce is, in fact, confined to a hospital bed, and that this dizzying vista is, in fact, his internal landscape.

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.