Metropolis Records is offering up the first taste of Weapon, the upcoming 12th studio album from Skinny Puppy, in the form of lead single “paragUn” — which you can now stream in full. Weapon is due out May 24 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, May 27 in the “rest of the world” and May 28 in North America.
Former Commotions leader Lloyd Cole this week debuted the first music from Standards, a new 11-track album that finds the singer-songwriter reuniting with part of the team — Matthew Sweet on bass and co-producer/drummer Fred Maher — behind Cole’s 1990 self-titled solo debut.
Big Country this summer will release a four-disc box set that compiles the Scottish rockers’ BBC studio sessions, live concert appearances and performances on TV shows such as “Top of the Pops,” a collection Universal Music says “charts the spectacular rise” of the band through the ’80s.
For this week’s installment of Vintage Video, we travel back to London on Nov. 9, 1984, to watch Mark Burgess lead his classic post-punk act The Chameleons through a 13-song, 100-performance at the Camden Palace, focusing on material from 1983’s Script of the Bridge and its follow-up.
Johnny Marr is wrapping up his U.S. tour in support of solo album The Messenger, and found time to stop by “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” last night to perform the record’s title track on air and then stuck around for a web-only performance of “How Soon Is Now?” — both of which you can see here.
It’s the first of the month, which means it’s time to unveil the results of Part 3 of our year-long Best of the ’80s feature, a year-by-year poll of Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers to determine the best albums of each year of the 1980s — and then we’ll run a monster best-of-the-decade poll to crown the overall champs.
R.E.M.’s ‘Green’ will be reissued this month in a deluxe 25th anniversary edition, and the fine folks at Rhino Records have provided us with five copies of the expanded 2CD edition and five copies of the 180-gram vinyl reissue to award to 10 lucky Slicing Up Eyeballs readers.
Q&A: Daniel Ash on Love and Rockets’ reunion, his new band — and figuring out how to play “So Alive” 
Q&A: Chris Frantz talks Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club and new book ‘Remain in Love’ 
Q&A: Steve Wynn on The Dream Syndicate’s first new album in nearly 30 years 
Q&A: Bauhaus’ David J on his ‘accidental’ concept album ‘Not Long For This World’ 
Q&A: Peter Murphy on ‘Ninth,’ Bauhaus’ break-up, reuniting Dalis Car 
Q&A: Joey Santiago on Pixies’ ‘Doolittle’ tour, possible ‘Surfer Rosa’ shows, new album talk 
Q&A: Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon on new album, changing the world with music 
Q&A: Peter Hook talks ‘Unknown Pleasures’ tour, re-recording Joy Division 