Coldplay ambling through a forest in "Midnight"

Coldplay has unveiled a haunting black-and-white music video for chilly new track "Midnight," an atmospheric track absent of the anthemic rock elements of earlier chart-toppers, but overflowing with hints that frontman Chris Martin and company have been spinning Bon Iver records pretty hard as they prep a sixth studio album, their first album since 2011's "Mylo Xyloto," which heard them sprinkle pop electronics over their soaring serenades, but the first teaser from upcoming album No.6 strays much further beyond that. It's subdued, murky, twinkling, but definitely not lead single material on first listen.
The ethereal track's desolate feel and heavy use of vocal overdubs, along with what sounds like a vocoder, feels more Bon Iver or The Knife-like rather than U2 and Radiohead, the group's traditional targets of comparison. A far cry from the anthemic chorus of their most recent track, "Atlas," which doubled as their contribution to the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack, "Midnight" is one of the group's most understated singles. For five minutes, the British rock band maintains a slow pulse highlighted by shimmering synthesizers that have more in common with downtempo EDM than Coldplay's piano rock. It's the band at their most spacious and ambient, stripped down to a ghostly essence.
What hit us the hardest is Martin's plaintive, thoroughly treated vocals. The frontman's tone has become ubiquitous in modern soft rock, but "Midnight" hears it distorted, with any hint of recognition gently drifting away further into the darkness. Martin intones heavily affected vocals that, at times, resemble early Nineties Peter Gabriel as he sings about darkness, while the synths build throughout the track before a skittery, rave-like keyboard line flits about noisy static. The track closes with Martin asking that a light be left on. Maybe somewhere deep within the effects-heavy murk of his more incoherent lyrics is something that explains just why the song came out at a time local to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.
The Mary Wigmore-directed atmospheric clip, matches the mood of the tune, is dark and chilly, full of black-and-white photo-negative images and what looks like heat-sensitive silhouettes of Coldplay's members ambling through some sort of parallel universe X-ray forest. Set primarily in a wooded area and shot in negative exposure, the trippy "Midnight" clip follows the band as they dance around to an airy electro-pop arrangement. You also get glimpses of a wandering wolf along with sped-up cityscapes. What Martin and his Auto-Tune will sound like when morning comes and they're out of the woods, we'll have to wait and see. Enjoy its subtle spookiness below.

Thirty Seconds To Mars unveiled "Do Or Die"

Thirty Seconds To Mars have unveiled a brand-new worldwide tour live video for their new single, "Do Or Die," the second single from American stadium emo-rockers' recent fourth studio album, "Love, Lust, Faith + Dreams," released in stores last May via Virgin Records and Universal. And just as you've come to expect from the trio, "Do Or Die," which clocks in at a whopping seven minutes, is basically a love letter to a fanbase, complete with testimonials, behind-the-scenes clips and some massive crowd shots with frontman Jared Leto in full messianic mode.
The concept album revolves around four themes after which the album is named. It is recognized by four colors, with the color Red stands for Love, Green for Lust, Yellow for Faith and Blue/Purple for Dreams. Written and produced by Leto, "Do Or Die," is an anthemic rock song with a real message behind. According to Leto, this propulsive rocker is "about standing up and living out your dreams." The track chronicles the band's backstage and onstage antics as they work to break a world record for the number of live shows performed during a single album cycle. This new clip is a love letter to the Echelon, and the explosive exchange of energy that takes place whenever they perform for them.
Shot during the band's 2013 tour in Europe, and directed as usual by Leto's "Bartholomew Cubbins" pseudonym, the seven-minute clip, is mostly a performance video featuring a lot concert footage, backstage footage, fan commentary, and random scenes, including their performance in Soho Square this summer when they performed a surprise busking set and self-shot studio footage and offers fans an insight into the band behind the scenes. It is vibrant and fans from all over the world are showcased in discussing how much Thirty Seconds To Mars means to them.
The emotional clip opens on a young man describing the pain of his father's unexpected death, how he dealt with the loss, how he continues to do so, and the role that music has played throughout the entire grieving process. Throughout cancer scares, divorce, job loss, death, and nearly anything else you could think of, music has helped these individuals persevere and continue to enjoy life. More confessionals are added to the mix, claiming that music is everything from a drug to the reason why they're even alive. Then, the video cuts to high-quality live performance footage, only occasionally swapping in scenes of the band helming a gigantic sailing ship.

Fiona Apple Is Flight "Every Single Night"

Fiona Apple is making her triumphant return to the world of music videos after more than 6 years away with "Every Single Night," the lead single off her forthcoming album, "The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do," The brilliantly bizarre clip, seems to be obsessed with wildlife, especially creatures with no spines, makes its official debut on the Sundance Channel Sunday night, and the album hits stores on June 19th, the kickoff day for Apple's North American tour.
"Every Single Night," her first single in y years, is a tortured tale but the lyrics aren't the only aspect of the sparse song that feels bipolar: There's a prominent toy piano riff that makes Apple sound like a ballerina spinning out of control. Apple describes what she's trying to capture as "the flight of little-wings of white-flamed butterflies in my brain" - a striking image that turns disturbing when you think about what it's like to be enveloped by trapped, flapping tiny insects. Apple uses her piano as a percussive instrument that also makes melodies. She bangs at it, slapping out chords that sometimes feel like marching orders and sometimes act as interruptions, enhancing the stop-start nature of her internal monologues.
Emotions are so darn beautiful - that's the message of music, much of the time. Apple's music does something different. A classically lovely woman whose gorgeous, sultry alto once led her toward alt-divadom, she has always dared herself to be and do something else: to say no to simple beauty and instead express the urges and insecurities that more accommodating artists tend to avoid. Combined with some her unique vocals and some truly unique imagery, "Every Single Night" is a triumphant comeback by being exactly what Apple's cult of devotees has been yearning for.
The 34-year-old songstress and pianist gave director Joseph Cahill pretty simple instructions: "do things to me and put me in situations and surprise me." The end result certainly is surprising. The very strange, sci-fi-tinged clip features unsettling water imagery, an octopus worn as a hat, and a minotaur in Apple's bed and dances down the street while surrounded by people with lightbulb-sticks. As we see Apple lying in a field, while an electric-blue sky floats above her, upside-down swimming above water and walking through the streets of Paris while a giant squid attacks the Eiffel Tower. It's strange, it's oddly beautiful. And it's far more haunting and for more beautiful than what we could have ever anticipated!

VersaEmerge Lost In Forest For "Fixed At Zero"

The Florida-based Alt-Rockers VersaEmerge are out with the video to their new title track off their full-length debut studio album, "Fixed At Zero," is catchy modern dream rock at its most ethereal and entrancing, just released on Fueled By Ramen. Infectious and sexy this is most certainly worth your time. Not only does "Fixed At Zero" feature pristine production, it also has one of the best vocal performances I've heard in a while, female or otherwise. The lead singer Sierra Kusterbeck's range, from sultry to soaring, is fantastic, as she knows when to pull in the reins as well as knowing when to belt it out.
This Florida trio is the future superstar of the heavily superstar lead by powerhouse, cute-as-a-button vocalist Kusterbeck. Her electrifying vocals are the batteries powering this machine, which is already good in and of itself. So the combo of soaring vocals and quality, catchy rhythm and riffing are the prime reasons why this band is on the verge of "emerging" from the underground and rocket to the stratosphere! With their dynamic brand of rock music, has already been named by Alternative Press as "A Band You Need To Know." However what makes all of this even more impressive is the fact that the band pulled all of this off without the benefit having a proper full-length to their name, but all of that's about to change with the release of "Fixed At Zero."
VersaEmerge in a heavily art-directed forest set where director Spence Nicholson takes some visual cues from the "vulture on my shoulder" lyrics, but keeps the focus on Kusterbeck and the band's performance. Kusterbeck explains how the storyline/treatment for the video follows here as she is 'lost' and wakes up in nest occupied by a vulture and how the live performance is set in a majestic forest. The vulture represents all your demons and bad habits that lurk in the back of your mind. They haunt you and try to control you. It's not always a bad thing. We aren't perfect. We all have a little vulture inside us, and sometimes it makes us take chances that we can learn from. I chose a vulture not only because it rhymed with 'shoulder,' but because they're so evil and lazy. It waits for its food to die and isn't even a skilled hunter. Sometimes we get all get lazy. We feel fixed at zero, which basically means to be stuck in one spot, not able to move forward or in the right direction- in the sense that 10 is the greatest and zero is the lowest. I want to get the phrase 'fixed at zero' in the dictionary, so I'm trying to think of many explanations as possible.
"Fixed At Zero" is like a walk through wonderland. It's powerful yet dreamy female lead vocals with a hint of vulnerability, it's unique fantasy feel from the varied instrument sounds and it's varied tempo lend to a surreal sound that feels a bit theatrical. At some point I realized I was experiencing the music more than just listening. VersaEmerge has found the perfect pop-rock mix, it'll lend nicely to make a few radio hits while others are meant to be admired and appreciated by true fans. "Fixed At Zero" has the charisma to draw in your attention and the substance to keep it as well. Looking for a new obsession? Say hello to 2010's breakout band, VersaEmerge.