This week’s new releases include a box set and vinyl demos set from The Sound, plus titles from The 3 Clubmen, Big Country, Laibach, The Durutti Column and more.

This is 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. May also include some other titles released in recent weeks but not previously featured. Includes releases by Depeche Mode, Joy Division and more.

British synthpop pioneers Heaven 17 failed to appear at last night’s Violent Femmes-headlined ’80s Weekend #9 concert in Los Angeles, but promised fans today that the visa troubles that kept them away won’t derail their first-ever U.S. tour planned for this May. Full details and tour dates here.

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’s releases include titles Midnight Oil, Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis, Gary Numan and Big Country.

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’s releases include titles from the Ramones, The Fall, Big Country, Richard Hell and INXS.

This week’s releases include new studio albums from U.K. post-punk legends Wire and singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, plus a new 3CD best-of set from Scottish rockers Big Country and a 4CD box set collecting the late-’70s work on Epic Records from punk act The Vibrators.

This week’s releases include brand-new studio albums from the Buzzcocks, The Vaselines and Stiff LIttle Fingers, plus a reissue of Big Country’s “Steeltown” to marks its 30th anniversary, a collection of David Byrne/Fatboy Slim remixes from their stage production about Imelda Maros.

This week’s new releases include a pair of 2CD reissues from Big Country (‘The Seer,’ ‘Peace In Our Time’) as well as a reissue of late Birthday Party guitarist Rowland S. Howard’s second solo album (2009’s ‘Pop Crimes’) and a vinyl reissue of Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ ‘All This Useless Beauty.’

Mike Peters last week addressed his departure from Big Country, thanking both the band and its fans “for a wonderful four years” without offering any reason for his split with the reunited group — which itself only has revealed to fans that “Big Country and Mike will now be parting ways” as it continues on as a four-piece.

In the fall of 2010, the surviving members of Big Country regrouped, tapped Mike Peters of The Alarm to fill in for late frontman Stuart Adamson and proceeded to tour the world, and record and release a new album called The Journey. Three years later, though, Peters is out of the band.

This week’s new releases include the new ‘At the BBC’ 3CD/1DVD box set and 2CD highlights collection from Big Country, plus the vinyl reissue of The Birthday Party’s ‘Live 1981-82,’ a new collection of 12-inch mixes from Icehouse and the U.K. release of The Cult’s ‘Electric Peace’ 2CD set.

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for late frontman Stuart Adamson — already has been on tour in the U.S. and Canada since early June, and has now extended that summer-long North American trek with dates that run through the month of August.

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late frontman Stuart Adamson — has fleshed out its North American tour schedule, with at least 24 concerts now scheduled in the U.S. and Canada, beginning tonight in New Jersey and running through late July.