Record Rack: A round-up of the week’s new albums, expanded reissues and/or box sets, appearing each Monday on Slicing Up Eyeballs.
ARTIST: Duran Duran
RELEASE: All You Need Is Now
BACKSTORY: Three months after the digital release, the New Wave legends finally release their new album in physical formats — CD, vinyl and a CD/DVD “Deluxe Edition” package — with up to six new songs added to the original nine-song tracklist, depending on which format you buy (see full tracklist here).
BUY IT: All You Need Is Now via Amazon.com
ARTIST: The Human League
RELEASE: Credo
BACKSTORY: The synthpop vets — leader Philip Oakey and singers Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley — deliver their first album in a decade this week in the U.K. The 11-track disc is the band’s first effort since 2001’s Secrets and ninth since 1979 (see full tracklist here).
BUY IT: Credo, via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: Pet Shop Boys
RELEASE: The Most Incredible Thing
BACKSTORY: The famed synthpop duo this week releases in the U.S. the 2CD set of their mostly instrumental electronic/symphonic score to the Hans Christian Andersen adaptation “The Most Incredible Thing,” the duo’s first-ever full-length “narrative ballet,” which debuted in London later this week (see full tracklist here).
BUY IT: The Most Incredible Thing via Amazon.com
ARTIST: John Foxx and The Maths
RELEASE: Interplay
BACKSTORY: The former Ultravox frontman and synthpop pioneer teams up with electronic composer Benge for this new group effort, a 10-track collection featuring songs such as “Shatterproof,” “The Running Man,” “Catwalk” and “Watching a Building on Fire,” the latter of which features Ladytron’s Mira Aroyo.
BUY IT: Interplay via Amazon.com
More from Soundgarden, Aztec Camera and Edwyn Collins after the jump…
ARTIST: Soundgarden
RELEASE: Live on I-5
BACKSTORY: The reunited grunge icons this week drop their first-ever live album, a 17-track collection recorded during 1996’s tour in support of Down on the Upside. The collection features “Outshined,” “Fell on Black Days,” “Rusty Cage,” “Jesus Christ Pose” and a cover of The Stooges’ “Search and Destroy.”
BUY IT: Live on I-5 via Amazon.com
ARTIST: Aztec Camera
RELEASE: Walk Out to Winter: The Best Of
BACKSTORY: The Roddy Frame-led U.K. indie pop act this week, in the U.K., is the subject of a new 2CD great-hits collection, a set featuring such favorites as “Oblivious,” “Mattres of Wire,” “Somewhere in My Heart” and the band’s cover of the Van Halen smash “Jump.”
BUY IT: Walk Out to Winter: The Best Of via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: Edwyn Collins
RELEASE: Losing Sleep
BACKSTORY: The former Orange Juice singer this week finally releases his seventh solo album in the U.S. (it came out overseas in September). The 12-track disc, his first since a life-threatening brain hemorrhage in 2005, features guest appearances by the likes of Johnny Marr, Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera and Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos.
BUY IT: Losing Sleep via Amazon.com
That Edwyn Collins album was one of my 2010 faves — especially love the song he does with the Drums, “In Your Eyes.”