The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for late frontman Stuart Adamson — already has been on tour in the U.S. and Canada since early June, and has now extended that summer-long North American trek with dates that run through the month of August.

Following the announcement this week that The Mission will release its new studio album The Brightest Light this September, the band today has shared a streaming sampler to let fans get short tastes of the album’s 11 songs. The new album is due out Sept. 17 in North America.

Steven Severin these days devotes himself to making new music for old movies, composing and performing scores for decades-old silent films. Now, though, he’s providing the score to “Borley Rectory,” an animated documentary about the “most famous haunted house in England.”

Optic Nerve Recordings is celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Monochrome Set’s early compilation Volume, Contrast, Brilliance… Singles & Sessions Vol. 1 with a new, ultra-limited vinyl pressing of the collection of various radio sessions and Rough Trade singles and B-sides recorded between 1979 and 1981.

Johnny Marr today debuted the video for the latest single off his new solo album The Messenger, a moody, black-and-white clip for “New Town Velocity” that features a lot of walking, both backwards and forwards. You can check out the video below via ShortList.com, where it premiered earlier today.

This week’s Slicing Up Eyeballs Music Hour featured new music from Paul Westerberg, Dinosaur Jr and The Chills, plus old faves by XTC, Simple Minds, The Selecter, Oingo Boingo, Concrete Blonde, Soft Cell, Lowlife, Mighty Lemon Drops, Lloyd Cole, Mojo Nixon and more.

Simple Minds this week announced its first North American tour in 11 years, a surprisingly short 7-date trek that has left fans who don’t live in Los Angeles or the Northeast severely disappointed. Frontman Jim Kerr, though, says the band is testing the waters for a larger tour.