To celebrate next week’s release of New Order’s ‘Lost Sirens’ mini-album — which will be issued digitally here in the U.S. beginning Tuesday — Rhino Records has gone analog, hooking us up with a set of all five of the band’s classic ’80s albums on vinyl to give away to one lucky Slicing Up Eyeballs reader.

We finish out the Slicing Up Eyeballs Readers Poll 2012 by counting down your picks for the Top 10 live acts of the year, a list that includes The Jesus and Mary Chain, Peter Murphy, Dead Can Dance, The Fixx, The Cure, Bob Mould, Adam Ant, Duran Duran, New Order and Swans.

New Order’s repeatedly delayed ‘Lost Sirens’ mini-album — a collection of eight previously unreleased tracks and mixes from the sessions for 2005’s ‘Waiting For the Sirens’ Call’ — finally will see the light of day next month following a legal battle over the material between the band and erstwhile bassist Peter Hook.

The reunion of 2 Tone-era ska giants The Specials rolls into 2013 as the band this week announced a 10-date spring tour of the U.K. and even hinted it would fulfill its promise to return to America, tweeting this morning that “The Specials are discussing a possible two part TOUR OF THE USA in March and late August 2013.”

Peter Hook recently recorded a 2-minute video for the NME’s Song Stories series in which he discusses the origins of some of Joy Division’s most beloved songs, including “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” “Transmission” and “Atmosphere” — plus the future New Order classic, “Ceremony,” that Joy Division didn’t record.

Drew Crumbaugh — aka The Analog Loyalist, whose attempt to restore R.E.M.’s I.R.S. Records catalog was thwarted by Universal Music earlier this year — has taken a second crack at cleaning up the 1980 concert included on the reissue of Joy Division’s ‘Closer,’ and is offering the new version as a free download.

With New Order’s first U.S. tour in seven years underway comes news the band finally will release the ‘Lost Sirens’ album — a collection of outtakes from 2005’s ‘Waiting for the Sirens’ Call’ delayed for nearly a year by apparent legal wrangling with Peter Hook — and that the band may tour both North and South America in 2013.

Having performed all three of Joy Division’s official albums live in recent years, Peter Hook announced today that he will turn his attention to his other former band, New Order, and perform that group’s first two albums — 1981’s ‘Movement and’ 1983’s ‘Power, Corruptions & Lies’ — live at a pair of U.K. concerts in January.

Bernard Sumner previously has hinted that New Order — which reunited last year without bassist Peter Hook — may write new music, but now he’s talking about it in detail for the first time, telling interviewers that the band will meet early next year to begin writing new material with an eye on making an ‘electronic synth album.’

Journalist Hobey Echlin took advantage of his face time with New Order during a 2001 interview to grab Peter Hook’s four-string and play the bassline to Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” in front of the man who wrote it — only to be told he was doing it wrong. So Hook took the bass back and showed Echlin how it’s done.

Long-running darkwave favorites Clan of Xymox — still centered around founding member Ronny Moorings — this fall will pay tribute to some of its own favorite bands with a collection called ‘Kindred Spirits’ that will feature covers of tracks by The Cure, Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees and both Joy Division and New Order.

The series launched this summer, and, so far, titles are available on Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths, Cocteau Twins and David Bowie. Next month sees publication of a title on Kate Bush, with books due in spring and summer 2013 on Abba, My Bloody Valentine, Kraftwerk, PIxies, R.E.M. and Roxy Music.

This week’s round-up of headlines includes items about The House of Love, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Elizabeth Fraser, Robert Smith, World Party, My Bloody Valentine, New Order, Billy Bragg, The Stone Roses, Bob Mould, PiL, Paul Weller and more — plus our latest Auto Reverse mixtape.