Classic Rock
Blondie release “High Noon” on 26 February 2027 through BMG and have put out “Spectral Eyes” ahead of it. There are thirteen songs, and it is the band’s first record since “Pollinator”, which came out in May 2017.
The drums were left behind by Clem Burke, who died on 6 April 2025 at the age of seventy: they are the last he recorded with Blondie. Among them is “Little Metal Drummer”, a reworking of a song keyboardist Jimmy Destri — another co-founder of the band — cut in 1981 for his solo debut “Heart On A Wall”: Burke and Harry both played on that original.
The sessions began in 2022 in New York City with John Congleton, who had already produced “Pollinator”; David Wrench added further production and the mix. “Spectral Eyes” is written by Johnny Marr, who plays guitar on it, and the album also features Glen Matlock, Zach Condon (Beirut) and Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig (Lucius).
“This album is classic Blondie — an amalgamation of all our different influences and eras into something new,” says Harry, who calls it grounded in the present and shaped by who they are and how they are living now. Chris Stein puts it another way: “It’s been a long, strange ride, and somehow here we are with another Blondie album.”
Harry and Stein formed the band in New York in 1974. Burke joined the following year and played with them to the end.
Text by Enric Vilaplana