It’s been a little while since we heard from post-hardcore outfit The Used but wahey, the boys are back with a new single in tow called “I Come Alive”. Taken off their long-awaited forthcoming LP Vulnerable, the track tames frontman Bert McCracken’s beast a little bit and chooses instead to show off his underrated range. There’s a lot of interesting new things going on instrumentally (we never thought we’d hear The Used use a xylophone) but it all works in context. That sweat-dripping, heavy-hitting power still remains, but it’s kind of neat to see the boys replace a bit of raucous with a dose borderline creepy atmospherics. The new album drops at the end of March so keep a look out!

www.theused.net
www.facebook.com/HopelessRecordsSEA

Last we saw of Boise’s Youth Lagoon, we had the Kleenex out for his daddy-issues inspired video for “Montana”. This time he re-teams with director Tyler T. Williams for yet another exercise in catharsis with the video for “July”. The only difference is that this one is slightly bigger in scale, well, its pretty much post-apocalyptic actually. Nevertheless it still feels personal and it still evokes goosebumps.

youthlagoon.bandcamp.com

Arcade Fire loves to get creative with their videos don’t they? Hot off the heels of their Google Maps inspired video for “We Used To Wait” comes another interactive online doozy in the form of their video for “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”. Amazingly, the whole thing lets viewers direct content and control characters (!) in the music video just by using their hands or mouse.

Apparently the speed and nuttiness of the video corresponds to how twitchy your fingers get (detected via webcam) so you may not wanna try this out at work. We’ve embedded the traditional video below but if you wanna take control of a dancing Régine Chassagne and her faceless zombie comrades you can head on over here.

www.sprawl2.com

Swedish singer Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon has been lending her fabulous vocals everywhere lately and its the bass DJs of the world that seem to have benefited the most. Hot off her acclaimed guest contribution to SBTRKT’s “Wildfire”, Little Dragon returns to complement DJ Shadow on the track “Scale It Back” off his The Less You Know, The Better album. Its a great smoky song that’s now found itself an amusing piece of visual accompaniment in a cute story card set in card memorizer Ben Pridmore’s imagination. Enjoy.

www.djshadow.com

It’s been near impossible for us too keep M83′s massive double album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming off our ears. It’s just top to bottom synth perfection. And the finest of the crop is undoubtedly the epic “Midnight City”, which thankfully now comes with equally epic visuals courtesy of Fluer & Manu. It concerns a bunch of telekinetic kids running amok in an abandoned warehouse. Not exactly the kind of heavenly bliss when we had in mind when we heard the song, but hey, this is pretty cool too.

ilovem83.com

The last time we saw the guys from Girls, we spent a few lonely minutes with a lonely red mustang. This time though, a white Corvette takes center stage (along with Chris Owens’ midriff-baring top) as we see a carefree couple take a romantic joyride across famous San Franciscan landmarks. As “Honey Bunny” shows, blondes with cool muscle cars get to have all the fun.

www.myspace.com/girls

The art of music video storytelling appears to be alive and well in 2011, notably with Best Coast (“Our Deal”) and Explosions In The Sky (“Be Comfortable, Creature”) using clever (albeit sad) narratives to drive their music videos. More short film goodness pops up with the clip for Youth Lagoon’s new cut, “Montana”. The Boise bedroom multi-instrumentalist loves his dreamy reverb, but this song is anything but laid-back. It’s powerful and it surges and it tugs and it’s all perfectly accompanied by poignant story.

youthlagoon.bandcamp.com

Unless watching Friday Night Lights counts, Explosions In The Sky don’t have very many of them newfangled music video thingamagics. In fact during their storied 12 years of releasing stirring, instrumental rock epics, the band has only ever released one official music video and that was merely 4 months ago for the space-trippy “Last Known Surroundings” taken off Take Care, Take Care, Take Care. So consider us overjoyed that the band has decided to double their music video library with a new clip for “Be Comfortable, Creature”. It features the emotional journey of a furry red alien, but hey, we reckon even watching a guy reading the phone book on the potty can seem like an emotional journey when scored to Explosions In The Sky.

www.explosionsinthesky.com

Curly-locked indie angel Annie Clark better known as St. Vincent will be back straddling the untrodden borders between chamber pop and cabaret jazz soon enough with her forthcoming album, Strange Mercy. But for now we have the blackly funny video for her new cut “Cruel” to share with you, where we find Annie suffering the sometimes suffocating nature of domestic life very literally. Enjoy.

www.ilovestvincent.com

The booming lungs behind, um, Lungs, returns for a follow-up LP that promises to be as fiery as that flaming red hair. Yes, Florence + The Machine is back, boys and girls! And this time she teams up with Adele producer Paul Epsworth (we can’t think of anybody better to harness Welch’s wail) for her entire sophomore statement. The baroque songstress is currently putting the finishing touches on the November-bound record  but in the meantime you enjoy the gospel goodness of her new single “What The Water Gave Me” below.

www.florenceandthemachine.net