As Depeche Mode prepares to ramp up promotion of its new album Spirit and upcoming worldwide tour, the band is teasing a “special thank you show” in Hollywood next week that’s expected to be formally announced tomorrow. The band’s Global Spirit Tour opens May 5 in Stockholm.

The Afghan Whigs will release their second post-reunion album, In Spades, on May 5 on Sub Pop Records, and today gave fans their second taste of the record with the release of “Arabian Height,” which you can stream here. The single follows the video release of “Demon in Profile.”

Blondie this morning premiered the music video for “Long Time,” a single off the band’s upcoming 11th studio album Pollinator that was co-written by Debbie Harry and Dev Hynes of Blood Orange. You can watch the video, directed by Dikayl Rimmasch and shot in New York City, here.

Chicago’s Riot Fest this morning unveiled the lineup for its three-day September festival, which will be headlined by Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age and a reunited Jawbreaker. Also on the bill: New Order, Ministry, Dinosaur Jr, X, Bad Brains, Buzzcocks, GBH, Fishbone and Alice Bag.

Matt Johnson debuted his first new The The single in a decade today on Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6 Music show, calling in to the program to introduce “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming,” a tribute to his late brother that will be released as a 7-inch single for Record Store Day in the U.K.

As mentioned yesterday, Slicing Up Eyeballs founder/editor Matt Sebastian is guesting on the Rockin’ the Suburbs podcast, and following Monday’s discussion of this website and ’80s college rock, come today’s episode about “Dark Wave,” the show he hosts every week on Sirius XM satellite radio’s 1st Wave channel.

The Factory Theatre in suburban Sydney, Australia, on Saturday hosted a 25th anniversary tribute to The Cure’s ninth album Wish that was headlined by Steve Kilbey of The Church, and featured a number of Sydney-area musicians performing songs off that record and Robert Smith and Co.’s back catalog.

Billed as “the kind of event you wish had happened years ago,” the fourth installment of London’s Indie Daze festival will feature The House of Love, Voice of the Beehive and Apollo 440, as well as Crazyhead, The Wonder Stuff’s Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls and Thousand Yard Stare.

Record Rack: A round-up of the week’s new albums, expanded reissues and/or box sets, appearing each Monday on Slicing Up Eyeballs. All releases due out this Friday unless noted. This week: Robyn HItchcock’s new self-titled album arrives, as does the all-star live set ‘Thank You, Friends: Big Star’s Third Live… And More.’

Slicing Up Eyeballs founder/editor Matt Sebastian is the guest on today’s episode of the excellent Rockin’ the Suburbs podcast, a five-day-a-week show hosted by Jim Lenahan and Patrick Foster that’s billed as “two (not so) ordinary men talking about their lifelong obsessions with music.”

New Order’s set from the closing night of the first weekend of the Coachella festival is streaming right now (10:40 p.m. Pacific) on the fest’s YouTube channel. Check out the full performance below. (And if you tune in late, you can scroll backward on the YouTube player and watch from the beginning.)

John Andrew Fredrick is back with the 15th album in 30 years with his cult-favorite Southern California indie-rock act The Black Watch, and we here at Slicing Up Eyeballs are thrilled to premiere “The All-Right Side of Just OK,” the second single off the forthcoming The Gospel According to John.

or this week’s installment of “120 Minutes” Rewind, we’ve dredged up this “120 X-Ray” segment from a Kevin Seal-hosted show in 1988 that spotlights The Sisters of Mercy circa Floodland. In the segment, bandleader Andrew Eldritch talks about the song “Black Planet” and more.