Still another week before the release of Kate Bush’s new album ’50 Words for Snow’ — a 65-minute collection featuring ‘seven brand new tracks set against a background of falling snow’ — but you can now stream the full record in advance of its release via NPR Music.

This week’s new releases include ‘Ersatz G.B.,’ the 29th studio album from The Fall, plus new best-ofs from R.E.M. (‘Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage’) and Wall of Voodoo (‘Lost Weekend’), and expanded reissue of Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Johnny YesNo’ soundtrack and Curt Smith’s solo effort ‘Mayfield.’

The playlist from Sunday night’s edition of ‘Dark Wave’ — the weekly ‘darker side of alternative’ show on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave — featured KMFDM, Camouflage, Wire, The Smiths, Killing Joke, Kate Bush, The Chameleons and much more.

This week’s round-up of click-worthy links includes news about Mick Jones playing Clash songs on a U.K. benefit tour, an interview with Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr via the Stuck in the ’80s podcast, interviews with The Sisters of Mercy and The Jesus and Mary Chain, and news that The Specials’ reunion will continue.

Our round-up of the past week’s highlights on Slicing Up Eyeballs includes posts about Duran Duran, Big Country, Peter Gabriel, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, Pet Shop Boys, R.E.M. and Brian Eno, Morrissey, Killing Joke and The Stone Roses — plus our free November mixtape.

The Pet Shop Boys not only are expecting to release a new studio album in 2012, they’re currently assembling a brand-new B-sides compilation — a sequel to 1995’s 2CD set ‘Alternative’ that will be called ‘Format,’ and span the years 1996 to 2009 — for release in February, the duo revealed in a new interview this week.

Now that he’s unemployed, former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe has plenty of time on his hands, which might explain his drop-in at the end of Thursday night’s ‘The Colbert Report.’ Stephen Colbert paid fitting tribute to ‘legendary rockers The R.E.M.s,’ then permanently enshrined Stipe on his ‘rock ‘n’ roll shelf of fame.’