Gang of Four this week announced it will release ‘Content’ — its first all-new studio album in more than 15 years — early next year on CD, vinyl and as part of an ‘Ultimate Content Can’ that includes lyrics, artwork, a scratch-and-sniff booklet and ‘vials of band members’ blood.’

On Nov. 1, the Pet Shop Boys will release a new best-of disc called ‘Ultimate Pet Shop Boys,’ billed as a ‘comprehensive greatest hits collection’ loaded with 19 singles appearing in chronological order, spanning 1984’s ‘West End Girls’ to ‘Love Etc.,’ the first single off the band’s 2009 album ‘Yes.’

Capitol/EMI today announced it will release ‘The Very Very Best of Crowded House,’ a new greatest-hits package, on Oct. 26 as both a 19-track CD and download and as an expanded 32-track digital-only collection.

The defunct Ministry next month will release ‘Every Day is Halloween: The Anthology,’ a 12-track compilation that appears to mix some of the band’s best-known singles with new covers of classic songs by AC/DC, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones — and Amy Winehouse?

Re-teaming with producer T Bone Burnett for the fourth time, Elvis Costello this fall will release ‘National Ransom,’ an-all new album featuring the members of his recent backing bands The Imposters and The Sugarcanes, as well as high-profile guests Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Marc Ribot and Buddy Miller.

The surviving members of Factory Records post-punk outfit Section 25 next month will release ‘Retrofit,’ a remix disc — completed before the untimely death last February of frontman Larry Cassidy — that features 10 of the band’s favorite tracks ‘remade and remodeled using new technology.’

With its second album out next month, Nick Cave’s garage-blues side project Grinderman — which features three of the frontman’s Bad Seeds bandmates — this week announced a 15-date North American tour this fall to follow its previously unveiled European trek.

After initially cautioning that their reunion solely was about ‘nostalgia,’ the members of U.K. indie-pop act The Primitives have hit the studio to record their first new music since 1991’s ‘Galore,’ telling fans ‘hopefully there’ll be a new Primitives release pretty soonish.’

Ever-quirky frontman Fred Schneider will take a break from the long-running B-52s this fall to release ‘Destination… Christmas!,’ a collection of 11 original and “party friendly” holiday tunes with his Orlando, Fla.-based side project The Superions.

Soundgarden this fall will release ‘Telephantasm,’ a new best-of spanning the band’s debut on the seminal 1986 proto-grunge comp ‘Deep Six’ to its final album, ‘Down on the Upside,’ a decade later — with a previously unreleased ‘Badmotorfinger’ outtake thrown in for good measure.

Peter Gabriel plans to follow up this year’s long-in-the-works ‘Scratch Your Back’ — his disc of orchestral cover versions of some of his favorite songs — next year with another orchestral album, one that this time will feature new takes on his own songs.

Former XTC figurehead Andy Partridge this week releases ‘Powers,’ a 12-track, limited-edition album featuring ‘aural sculptures’ inspired by the late sci-fi book-jacket artist Richard M. Powers. Hear audio samples from the album.

Breaking up two years ago hasn’t slowed Ministry’s output: Al Jourgensen’s defunct industrial-metal juggernaut next month will release ‘MiXXXes of the Molé,’ a track-by-track ‘trance metal’ remix of the band’s 2004 album ‘Houses of the Molé.’