The reunited Afghan Whigs this morning offered fans their first taste of upcoming seventh album Do To The Beast with the premiere on Spotify of the first track off that release: “Algiers,” a four-minute, mostly acoustic ballad that’s dirtied up, in the middle, with a fuzzed-out electric-guitar solo,

It’s been a busy few months for David J: The bassist recorded a new version of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” and is putting together a new album called An Eclipse of Ships. Add to that a new role as bassist for the band Stellarum, with which he’s just recorded a slow-burning cover of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.”

The Pixies are ringing in 2014 with a second batch of new songs, today releasing a second four-song EP of brand-new material and debuting the video for one of the songs: the rocker “Blue Eyed Hexe,” which the band debuted last September at a warm-up gig.

previously unreleased and apparently never-completed 5-minute-long Talking Heads instrumental called “Theme” has surfaced online via a recording of the first of the band’s two sets opening for a pair of performances by Television at CBGB’s on the night of July 30, 1976.

Tears For Fears continue their streak of releasing covers of contemporary indie-rock cuts, today surprising fans with a new cover of Animal Collective’s 2009 single “My Girls” — the latest in their series of recordings, following Arcade Fire and Hot Chip covers, that the band made earlier this year.

To mark the digital release this week of their first new album in a decade, the Throwing Muses are streaming another track off Purgatory/Paradise ahead of its publication as a 64-page book that will include the album on CD on Dec. 3. It’s one of 32 songs to appear on the Muses’ first album since the band’s 2003 self-titled record.

Canadian synthpop outfit Rational Youth is digging into its vaults with the release of a new 3CD archival set called Magic Box, which features a 27-song live album that was recorded in 1983 on two discs and a third CD collecting demos, 7-inch remixes and solo tracks from members Bill Vorn, Kevin Komoda, and Tracy Howe.