After a decade of inactivity, The The is back with its second album in just two years, another film score, this time for the documentary ‘Moonbug,’ about photographer Steve Pyke’s journey to document America’s space pioneers, bandleader Matt Johnson announced today on the group’s newly revamped website.

The Stranglers — singer-bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel, drummer Jet Black and keyboard player Dave Greenfield, plus former Toy Dolls guitarist Baz Warne — next week will release ‘Giants,’ their 17th studio album and first in six years, and are previewing the disc by streaming the single ‘Time Was Once On My Side.’

The Primitives today announced the release of their first full-length record in 21 years, a 14-track ‘concept covers album’ called ‘Echoes and Rhymes’ that will ‘revisit songs from semi-obscure bands from the ’60s with women lead singers’ in a variety of sonic styles.

Erasure recently began taking orders for a new 2CD, 21-track concert album ‘Tomorrow’s World: Live at the Roundhouse,’ and the group is previewing four of the set’s tracks: “Fill Us With Fire” and “A Whole Lotta Love Run Riot,” both off last year’s ‘Tomorrow’s World’ LP, and the classics “Blue Savannah” and “Chorus.”

John Lydon’s resurrected Public Image Ltd. today announced a May 28 release date for ‘This is PiL,’ the post-punk act’s first new album in 20 years, and also unveiled the tracklist for the four-song Record Store Day EP that’s culled from the new record and which will hit shops a full month earlier.

The Elvis Costello box set that the singer himself railed against last fall has actually increased in price over the intervening months — Amazon.com now lists it at $280, up from $260 — but, as promised, fans soon will be able to spend $257.35 less for a slimmed-down repackaging of the set.

4AD this spring will commemorate the 30th anniversary of genre-bending electronic pioneers Colourbox by collecting the group’s full studio output in a four-disc, 59-track box set that includes the free mini-album given away along with initial pressing of the group’s 1985 debut, plus 12-inch mixes and a BBC session.

The five-disc World Party box set announced last month will be released April 10 and comprised entirely of previously unreleased material: 70 never-before-heard tracks including new songs and an ‘unheard history of rare studio gems, live sessions, concert recordings, radio interviews, covers, demos and B-sides.’

More than a year after the death of former Japan bassist Mick Karn, fans finally will get a chance to hear the ‘Dalis Car’ EP he recorded with Peter Murphy in the fall of 2010, a five-track collection that represents the briefly reunited duo’s first work together since their lone album, ‘The Waking Hour,’ came out in 1984.

Erasure has set a March 12 release date for the third single off last year’s ‘Tomorrow’s Word’: ‘Fill Us With Fire,’ which will be released in the U.K. as an eight-track CD single and elsewhere as a digital download package. The single features ‘Shot to the Heart,’ previously available as an iTunes bonus track.

The original lineup of Killing Joke — Jaz Coleman, Kevin ‘Geordie’ Walker, Martin ‘Youth’ Glover and Paul Ferguson — this morning announced the release of the legendary postpunk band’s 15th studio album, the aptly titled ‘2012,’ which will be released April 2 — and is preceded by the track ‘Rapture,’ which you can stream here.

The Human League — set to release an expanded 2CD edition of its 1981 synthpop classic ‘Dare’ this March — this week announced XXXV: The 2012 Tour, a 14-date U.K. trek planned for this November and December that will commemorate the 35th anniversary of the band’s formation in Sheffield, England.

The Cult roars back into action this May with a brand-new, 10-track album called ‘Choice of Weapon,’ co-produced by ‘Sonic Temple’ veteran Bob Rock and preceded by the rocker ‘Lucifer’ — which is available here as a free MP3 download. It’s the group’s ninth album overall and first in five years.