The long wait is nearly over for fans of the Throwing Muses, as frontwoman Kristin Hersh this morning announced via Twitter the completion of the band’s long-in-the-works ninth album, which, upon its expected release sometime next year, will mark the Muses’ first new record in a decade.

The Church next year will release a live DVD capturing the band’s performance of three full albums — 1988′s ‘Starfish,’ 1992′s ‘Priest=Aura’ and 2009’s ‘Untitled #23’ — last December in Sydney, and is previewing the upcoming release by streaming each of the sets via Moshcam.com.

Dinosaur Jr frontman/guitar butcher J Mascis isn’t known as the most talkative man in rock, so it’s a rare treat to see he’s guesting on today’s episode of “WTF,” the Marc Maron-hosted podcast that has nicely expanded from its comedians-talking-about-comedy roots to include the occasional musical guest.

This week’s new releases include reissue of albums from The House of Love, The Blow Monkeys, Josef K and Marc and the Mambas, plus new music from Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie, Douglas J. McCarthy of Nitzer Ebb, Bryan Ferry and the surviving members of Throbbing Gristle.

Tonight’s edition of “Dark Wave” on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave featured Front Line Assembly, The Sisters of Mercy, The The, Propaganda, The Cure, KMFDM, The Essence, The Church, Joy Division, The Bubblemen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Ghost Dance, Lords of the New Church and much, much more.

Cherry Red Records next spring will release a 4CD box called ‘Scared To Get Happy: A Story of Indie-Pop 1980-1989’ that the U.K. label says is inspired by the Lenny Kaye’s classic ‘Nuggets’ garage-rock compilation and is “devoted to the 1980s indie guitar-pop revolution which swept across the British Isles.”

This week’s Slicing Up Eyeballs Music Hour on Strangeways Radio featured music from Johnny Marr, Felt, Paul Weller, Mission of Burma, The Mighty Lemon Drops, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Jesus and Mary Chain, OMD, Joe Strummer, Screaming Blue Messiahs and moer.

Cherry Red Records today offered up a fourth preview track of the label’s upcoming 3CD reissue of the self-titled 1988 debut from The House of Love — this time one of three live tracks included on the set, a cover of The Stooges’ classic “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

Reunited indie-pop outfit The Ocean Blue is releasing its first new album in 13 years this January, but fans can get an early listen to two of the record’s tracks next week when they appear on a new compilation being released by Korda Records, the new label launched by the band’s David Schelzel and three fellow musicians.

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.

Fans planning to attend The Psychedelic Furs’ New Year’s Day concert in Las Vegas and three early January shows in California will now get a New Wave double bill as The Fixx has signed on to support most of the Furs’ upcoming West Coast dates — plays the band’s got a few year-end shows of its own planned, too.

R.E.M. famously didn’t tour behind its two best-selling albums — 1991’s ‘Out of Time’ and 1992’s ‘Automatic For the People’ — but the band did play a single concert in support of the latter record, a Greenpeace benefit at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Ga., exactly 20 years ago tonight.

This week’s new releases include a 2CD live set from Simple Minds, an archival live album from Dinosaur Jr on vinyl and MP3, reissues from The Jam and The Blue Nile, a CD/DVD 30th anniversary live set from The Pogues and a collection of Elvis Costello songs used in films.