Last week, Depeche Mode offered up a sneak peak of its recording studio being set up, and now frontman Dave Gahan reveals the band already has demoed about 20 new songs for its as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2009’s ‘Sounds of the Universe’ — and already is making plans to take the new songs on the road next year.

Last we checked in with Depeche Mode, the band was due to enter the studio this past March to begin work on its 13th studio album. Now DM is teasing fans with this 43-second time-lapse video of the band’s synths and other gear being set up in a studio.

The Charlatans this spring continue their somewhat haphazard reissue campaign by following up expanded editions of 1990 debut ‘Some Friendly’ and 1999’s ‘Us and Us Only’ with a double-disc re-release of 1997’s ‘Tellin’ Stories’ — which will be followed by four performances of the album in the U.K. this June.

Men Without Hats are set to release ‘Love in the Age of War,’ their first album in nine years, this spring, and last week frontman Ivan Doroschuk premiered the album’s first single, “Head Above Water,” on Montreal’s CHOM 97.7. You can hear the track, produced by ex-Skinny Puppy member Dave Ogilvie, here.

There’s a flurry of activity coming from The English Beat — or as they’re more properly known, The Beat — as Shout! Factory this week announced plans to release both a new single-disc best-of and a 5CD box set featuring the band’s three albums and two discs of bonus material.

The original lineup of San Francisco’s Translator — the psychedelic-tinged New Wave rock act best remembered for its 1982 single ‘Everywhere That I’m Not’ — this week will release ‘Big Green Lawn,’ its fifth album and first in 26 years. The seven-track album’s out Tuesday, and you the song ‘Soul on Fire’ here.