A cutting-edge theater company on the Mediterranean island of Malta has acquired the rights to use Depeche Mode songs such as ‘Personal Jesus’ and ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ in ‘Playing the Angel: The Musical,’ which is set to open early next year.

This year may be nearly half over, but it’s certainly not too late to catch up with The Smiths Project, an ambitious and impressive effort by San Jose, Calif., musician Janice Whaley to record layered vocal arrangements of every song ever released by The Smiths — all by the end of 2010.

That concert in Atlanta featuring ex-frontman Dean Wareham ‘performing the Galaxie 500 songbook’ that we told you about last month won’t be a one-off after all: Wareham and his Dean & Britta bandmates have announced a scattered string of such shows between August and December.

Devo not only celebrated yesterday’s release of ‘Something for Everybody’ — their first new album in 20 years — by holding a listening party for cats, the jump-suited band also turned up on ‘The Late Show with David Letterman’ last night to perform the single ‘Fresh.’

The founding members of British post-punk/New Wave act Modern English — immortalized by their hit ‘I Melt With You’ — are reuniting for the first time since the mid-’80s to tour this summer in support of the band’s just-released album ‘Soundtrack.’

Given today’s release of ‘Intriguer’ in the U.K., it seems fitting to post this sweet clip: Crowded House and the venerable Johnny Marr covering the David Bowie classic ‘Moonage Daydream’ during the encore of the band’s May 27 concert in Manchester.

This week’s new releases include the U.K. edition of ‘Intriguer,’ Crowded House’s second post-reunion album; ‘Something for Everybody,’ Devo’s first new album in 20 years; ‘Close-Up Vol. 1: Love Songs,’ a disc of Suzanne Vega re-recordings; and the reissue of The Dream Syndicate’s ‘Medicine Show.’