Twenty-five years ago today, Depeche Mode released its fifth album, the landmark ‘Black Celebration,’ which opened a dark trilogy — including 1987’s ‘Music for the Masses’ and 1990’s ‘Violator’ — that cemented the synthpop act’s evolution from underground cult faves to global chart-toppers.

Reunited synthpop group Blancmange returns this week with ‘Blanc Burn’ — its fourth album, and first in more than a quarter century — as well as an eight-date U.K. tour, although ailing co-founder Stephen Luscombe has been advised by doctors to skip the trek.

Real or fake? Depeche Mode fans are debating a trio of 30- and 40-second samples — including one that may be a never-before-released track — that surfaced online yesterday and purportedly come from a 1980 demo tape. Hear those samples here.

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.

Updating a couple Depeche Mode-related items we reported on, Erasure’s Vince Clarke this week tweeted that the joint album he’s working on with former bandmate Martin Gore is ‘almost done,’ while Andy Fletcher revealed that DM’s new remix album will arrive in April.

Hey, what do you know: Turns out exactly two years have passed since Slicing Up Eyeballs: The Legacy of ’80s College Rock launched, and here we are — 1,276 posts and 1.7 million pageviews later — still chugging along.

The University of San Francisco’s pioneering college radio station — KUSF, one of the first outlets to play punk rock and whose DJs are credited with helping break bands like Depeche Mode in the U.S. — was pulled off the air abruptly this week.