This week’s new releases include the new soundtrack for ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,’ courtesy of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, plus a box set of the first five Cure albums, a reissue of David Bowie’s ‘Heathen’ on vinyl and a collection of early Cramps singles.

The playlist from tonight’s edition of ‘Dark Wave’ — the weekly ‘darker side of alternative’ show on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave — featured Xymox, The Church, Japan, The The, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Killing Joke, The Cure, Cabaret Voltaire and much more.

Merry Christmas from us here at Slicing Up Eyeballs to you — wherever you may be this fine Dec. 25. And if you partake in other holidays, or none in particular, hope you’re having a wonderful day, too. We’ll leave you with this classic video featuring a tall Jewish man issuing a heartfelt plea for peace on Jesus’ birthday.

For the second straight year, The Ocean Blue has posted a free Christmas single, once again pairing the band’s David Schelzel with Don Peris of The Innocence Mission. This year, the pair recorded a cover of ‘Walking on Air,’ from the 1982 animated adaptation of the children’s book ‘The Snowman.’

The reunited New Order — featuring keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, but not bassist Peter Hook — is releasing a live recording of its full 90-minute performance two weeks ago at London’s Troxy. The concert is being released as ‘Live at The London Troxy — 10th December 2011’ in both a 2CD set and a 320kbps MP3 download.

As 2011 quickly winds to an end, we’re happy to roll out our fourth and final days’ worth of results from our second-annual Slicing Up Eyeballs Readers Poll, in which nearly 500 of you cast ballots for your favorite music of the year. Today, we bring you the big one: The best albums of 2011.

Morrissey has issued a wide-ranging statement upon the completion of his recent U.S.-Mexico concerts (“It was a dream tour”) in which he seemingly gives up hope of signing a deal with a “grownup label,” claiming “the follow-up to Years of Refusal grows less and less likely.”