Echo & The Bunnymen today revealed that the band’s upcoming 12th studio album — produced by Killing Joke bassist Youth — is nearing completion and will be formally announced soon, and that frontman Ian McCulloch “feels it’s the band’s best work for a very long time.”

Up to 40 Peter Murphy fans will get the first crack at hearing the former Bauhaus frontman’s forthcoming album Lion next month when the singer hosts a private listening party “at a secret location in the Los Angeles area,” with the promise of “an unprecedented discussion between artist and audience.”

Peter Murphy may be out on the road celebrating 35 years of Bauhaus with sets filled entirely by music performed by his old band, but he’s looking forward as well as he works on the follow-up to his 2011 album Ninth, a new record called Lion that’s being produced by Youth and is expected to arrive sometime in early 2014.

Ian McCulloch next month will release a new 2CD set called ‘Holy Ghosts’ that combines the fan-funded studio album ‘Pro Patria Mori’ he released in limited quantities last year with an unreleased 15-track live set of “orchestral reworkings” of solo tracks and Bunnymen classics recorded last May.

Echo & The Bunnymen spinoff Poltergeist — an instrumental trio that reunites guitarist Will Sergeant with former bassist and founding member Les Pattinson — today announced it will release a debut album titled ‘Your Mind Is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder)’ in March then perform a series of U.K. dates later that month.

This week’s new releases include ‘Who We Touch,’ the 11th album from The Charlatans; ‘The Morning After,’ a new mini-album from James; a David Bowie tribute album featuring Duran Duran and Mick Karn; and reissues from Madness and Flesh for Lulu’s Nick Marsh.