Big Country this summer will release a four-disc box set that compiles the Scottish rockers’ BBC studio sessions, live concert appearances and performances on TV shows such as “Top of the Pops,” a collection Universal Music says “charts the spectacular rise” of the band through the ’80s.

This week’s new releases include brand-new studio albums from Iggy and The Stooges (‘Ready to Die’), The Blow Monkeys (‘Feels Like a New Morning’) and Big Country (‘The Journey’), plus a Melvins cover album (‘Everybody Loves Sausages’) and a Midnight Oil best-of (‘Essential Oils’).

This week sees the release of brand-new studio albums from OMD, Big Country (with Mike Peters of The Alarm) and The House of Love, plus reissues from Morrissey (‘Kill Uncle’) and Electronic (‘Electronic’), a live album from Sparks and a new 7-inch single from The Fall.

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late frontman Stuart Adamson and the recent addition of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes — is due to release The Journey, the band’s first new album in 14 years, next month, and is previewing the disc with first single “Hurt.”

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late frontman Stuart Adamson and the recent addition of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes — will tour the U.S. this June in support of the forthcoming ‘The Journey,’ with at least six dates on the two coasts already confirmed.

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late Stuart Adamson and the new addition of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes — will release a new album titled ‘The Journey’ this spring and embark on a world tour that will hit the U.K., Europe and North America.

Bassist Tony Butler — who joined Big Country prior to the recording of its 1982 debut single ‘Harvest Home’ — announced this past weekend that he’s leaving the recently reunited band, writing in a message to fans that ‘after 32 years of incredible highs and a very tragic low, I feel that now is the time to look to new horizons.’

This week’s roundup of headlines includes items on Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman, New Order, Ian McCulloch, R.E.M., Aztec Camera, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Jazz Butcher, Crime and the City Solution, Men Without Hats, Ministry, Public Image Ltd., Close Lobsters, Mojo Nixon and more.

For our latest installment of Vintage Video, we turn, yet again, to the fabulous archive of the German TV show ‘Rockpalast,’ this time for a full, 100-minute concert by Big Country that was filmed March 15, 1986, during the band’s tour ahead of the release of its third album, ‘The Seer.’

He’s been busy of late fronting the resurgent Big Country at performances across the pond, but The Alarm frontman Mike Peters will make it to these shores for a special, one-off solo-acoustic show at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, N.J., on July 4 that’s being billed as a “Spirit of ’76 Independence Day Concert.”

This week’s new releases include a new B-sides compilation from the Pet Shops Boys (‘Format’), a new live album by Wire (‘The Black Session’), a vinyl reissue of Cocteau Twins’ ‘Stars and Topsoil,’ a new John Foxx and the Maths’ album, a 2CD reissue of Big Country’s ‘The Crossing’ and an archival live album from The Plimsouls.’

Our round-up of the past week’s highlights on Slicing Up Eyeballs includes posts about Duran Duran, Big Country, Peter Gabriel, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, Pet Shop Boys, R.E.M. and Brian Eno, Morrissey, Killing Joke and The Stone Roses — plus our free November mixtape.

The reunited Big Country today revealed the tracklist for its upcoming 2CD ‘deluxe edition’ reissue of its 1983 debut album ‘The Crossing,’ which will be released by Universal Music on Jan. 30 in the U.K. and be supplemented with seven B-sides and a second disc featuring 17 demos — 10 of which are previously unreleased.