If Robert Smith is to be believed, The Cure will deliver its long-awaited new studio album sometime before October, when the band is scheduled to embark on a European tour.

The Cure today announced a 44-date European arena tour for late 2022 that will take Robert Smith and Co. to 19 counties, the band’s first non-festival tour in six years.

Simon Gallup, 61, made the announcement in a public post on his personal Facebook page, writing: “With a slightly heavy heart I am no longer a member of the Cure! Good luck to them all…” In response to someone asking if he was OK, he replied that he “just got fed up of betrayal.” More here.

The Cure’s Robert Smith has followed up his 2020 guest turn with Gorillaz with a new collaboration, this time duetting with frontwoman Lauren Mayberry on Chvrches’ new single “How Not to Drown” off the band’s just-announced new album Screen Violence. Listen to the new song right here.

A couple weeks after playing three songs off The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds for a charity webcast Robert Smith was at it again this week, this time performing a trio of songs off that album’s follow-up, Faith, for a different fundraising broadcast. Watch the full set right here.

The Cure’s Robert Smith performed a trio of songs off 1980’s Seventeen Seconds for the Robin Ince-hosted “Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People” 24-hour charity livestream, a set broadcast Saturday that included “In Your House,” “M” and “Play for Today.” Watch the full set right here.

Industrial rockers Stabbing Westward have released a new Halloween-themed EP called Hallowed Hymns that features new covers of The Cure’s “Burn” — two versions, in fact — as well as Ministry’s “(Every Day Is) Halloween” and Echo & The Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon.” Listen to the new EP right here.

As fans of The Cure continue to wait for the band’s long-promised new studio album, frontman Robert Smith today delivers new music: a collaboration with Gorillaz for the Damon Albarn-led group’s ongoing “Song Machine” series — which you can hear via its animated music video.

The rumored appearance by The Cure’s Robert Smith on the next installment of Gorillaz’s “Song Machine” series was confirmed by the group on Twitter today, though it’s not yet clear when the song — the sixth episode in the series — will arrive. More information on the project right here.

Wayne Hussey has enlisted current and former members of The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Cult, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus and The Smiths for an all-star remake of The Mission’s 1988 anthem “Tower of Strength” to benefit “key workers dealing with COVID-19 globally.” Full details right here.

Two key drummers of the early post-punk era — The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst and Budgie of Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Creatures — have formed a new band called LXB that could release its already-recorded debut album before the end of this year, the two announced during an interview on Sirius XM’s Volume.

Our good friends at Strangeways Radio are putting together a week-in-review video series — newly rechristened Alt. Rewind — that will recap the news posted at Slicing Up Eyeballs and on the Strangeways site throughout the preceding week, hosted by Velvet Rebel. Watch the brand new installment right here.

Following the success of the debut of DJ Jake Rudh’s “180 Minutes” earlier this month, Transmission Music and Slicing Up Eyeballs are thrilled to announce the event — a 3+ hour audiovisual celebration of college rock and classic alternative music — will stream live on Twitch every other Saturday night, beginning this coming weekend.