BMG
Blondie have made their return official with ‘High Noon,’ the band’s 12th studio album and first since 2017’s ‘Pollinator.’ The announcement, made on October 15, arrives alongside a first single, ‘Spectral Eyes,’ co-written by Johnny Marr. The record is due out February 26, 2027 via BMG, closing the longest gap between two studio albums in the band’s history.
A single written with Johnny Marr
On ‘Spectral Eyes,’ Debbie Harry’s vocals sit over a shimmering guitar line courtesy of Johnny Marr, who co-wrote the track and plays on it. The former Smiths guitarist isn’t the only notable name on the record: Glen Matlock, former Sex Pistols bassist, wrote the track ‘Sleepwalking,’ while Zach Condon of Beirut and Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius also appear on the credits. The album runs thirteen tracks, opening with ‘Spectral Eyes.’
Clem Burke’s final sessions
‘High Noon’ is also Blondie’s first album since the death of co-founding drummer Clem Burke, who passed away from cancer in April 2025 at age 70. Sessions began in 2022 in New York with producer John Congleton, who also worked on ‘Pollinator,’ and stretched across several years. The record gathers the drummer’s final recordings, after decades spent alongside Debbie Harry and Chris Stein since the band’s formation in mid-1970s New York. The band knew Burke’s health was declining as the sessions went on, which gives those takes added weight: they close a cycle that began fifty years earlier, when the drummer joined Harry and Stein in New York’s fledgling punk clubs.
A visual identity entrusted to a longtime collaborator
The visual identity behind ‘High Noon’ was entrusted to artist and director Rob Roth, a longtime Blondie collaborator, working alongside Untold Studios. The rollout is set to include visualisers and an upcoming short film, also directed by Roth, who has shaped the band’s visual world on past tours and whose work has become closely associated with how Blondie presents new material to its audience.
Building on the momentum of ‘Pollinator’
Formed in 1974 in New York, Blondie became one of the most eclectic bands of the new wave era, blending punk, disco and reggae behind Debbie Harry’s voice. The band’s last comeback, ‘Pollinator’ in 2017, was praised for its guest-heavy approach — with Johnny Marr already on board back then. ‘High Noon’ looks set to extend that momentum, with an equally wide cast of collaborators on a record the band describes as staying grounded in the present, shaped by who they are and how they’re living now.
A discography spanning five decades
From ‘Blondie’ in 1976 through ‘Pollinator’ in 2017, the band has released eleven studio albums over four decades, spanning the chart-topping run of the late 1970s and early 1980s — ‘Heart of Glass,’ ‘Call Me,’ ‘Rapture’ — and stretches in the wilderness followed by notable comebacks, including 1999’s ‘No Exit.’ ‘High Noon’ fits that pattern of regular resurgence, this time from a lineup that weathered the loss of one of its founding members without giving up on new music, and that continues to draw collaborators from well beyond its own generation.
‘High Noon’ is due out February 26, 2027 via BMG. In the meantime, ‘Spectral Eyes’ is streaming now, alongside an official video. The band hasn’t announced any tour dates tied to the release yet, but the wide cast of outside collaborators on the record suggests live appearances could follow, as they did around ‘Pollinator,’ once the album itself is out. For now, the focus stays on the music: a first taste of a record that doubles as both a farewell and a continuation.
