Further evidence that Robert Smith may be revving up for an active 2011: The son of bassist Simon Gallup posted on Facebook that he was in the studio with The Cure last week, news that lit up fan sites and forums over the weekend.

Although Grinderman’s been on the frontburner of late, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds move on to Round 3 of their extensive reissue campaign this spring, delivering expanded re-releases of 1994’s ‘Let Love In,’ 1996’s ‘Murder Ballads,’ 1997’s ‘The Boatman’s Call’ and 2001’s ‘No More Shall We Part.’

This week’s new releases include The The’s soundtrack to the film ‘Tony’; a new best-of from Scritti Politti; Mike Watt’s punk opera ‘Hyphenated-Man’; the second album from Steve Wynn’s The Baseball Project; a new OMD single; and This Mortal Coil on vinyl.

The playlist from tonight’s “Dark Wave” — the Sunday night “darker side of alternative” show on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave — features tracks by Camouflage, Fad Gadget, Peter Murphy, Die Warzau and more.

Promising ‘a larger tour later in the year,’ Duran Duran today began rolling out a series of North American club and theater dates throughout April on either side of its appearance at Coachella — with additional shows still to be announced.

This one made the rounds on a wide swath of music blogs this week, but in case you didn’t hear it, check out this cover of Depeche Mode’s 1987 single and ‘Music For The Masses’ favorite ‘Strangelove’ by Natasha Khan aka Bat For Lashes.

The R.E.M. pre-release train keeps on rolling, as the band this week released a new live-in-the-studio performance — filmed at Berlin’s famed Hansa Tonstudios — of ‘Collapse Into Now’ single ‘Mine Smell Like Honey.’