This week’s new releases include a pair of 2CD sets from famed synthpop label ZTT Records (an expanded reissue of Propaganda’s ‘A Secret Wish’ and the Art of Noise comp ‘Influence’), as well as a blue-vinyl issue of Devo’s new ‘Something for Everybody’ and the debut from The High Confessions, featuring Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley and Chris Connelly (Ministry, Revolting Cocks).

This week’s new releases include Record Store Day-related reissues from R.E.M., Sonic Youth and Devo, plus the expanded edition of Iggy and the Stooges’ classic ‘Raw Power,’ and a new Revolting Cocks album.

[tweetmeme]This week saw the passing of a key figure in the ’80s and early-’90s industrial-dance scene: Dannie Flesher, co-founder of Chicago’s hugely influential Wax Trax! Records, the label behind such pioneering acts as Ministry, Front 242, KMFDM and My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult.
Flesher, 58, died Sunday at a care facility in his hometown [...]

Is Uncle Al going soft? First ex-Ministry mastermind Al Jourgensen lets slip plans to record a pop album, and now he’s announcing he’ll release a Christmas song — hey, just like Bob Dylan! — later this year in memory of late Killing Joke/Ministry bassist Paul Raven.
Building up to Tuesday’s release of Revolting Cocks remix disc Sex-O [...]

Record Rack: A weekly round-up of the pertinent new albums, reissues and/or box sets due out Tuesday.
ARTIST: Ian Brown
RELEASES: My Way
BACKSTORY: The former Stone Roses singer delivers his sixth solo CD, recorded at Battery Studios, where he and his ex-bandmates recorded their seminal debut 20 years earlier. Brown told the NME that [...]

With Ministry now over and a bunch of ringers currently out on the road as the Revolting Cocks, industrial godfather Al Jourgensen is threatening to go back to his much-derided roots and do the near-unthinkable: record a pop album.
In an interview last week with VampiresFreaks.com to promote the RevCo tour, Jourgensen claims he is working [...]

Ministry’s Al Jourgensen this week announced his spin-off band Revolting Cocks will mount its first headlining tour in two decades this fall — although that’s really just in name only, since Jourgensen’s no longer even in the band, which is comprised of all new touring members.
Formed in 1983, Jourgensen’s RevCo long as been a sort [...]

Record Rack: A weekly round-up of the pertinent new releases hitting stores this Tuesday:
ARTIST: U2
ALBUM: No Line on the Horizon
FORMAT: CD, LP, download
BACKSTORY: Bono and Co.’s 12th album leaked nearly two weeks ago, prompting the band to stream it on MySpace well before its official release date. The disc finds U2 working with longtime associates [...]