The bizarre "Dragonfly," a six-minute sci-fi epic detailing a futuristic space craft race, is odd and uncompromising but surprisingly beguiling and memorable, with Harry reportedly making up the in-depth spoken technical jargon on the spot herself. At this point in their career it's obvious the band was going to break up soon enough unfortunately; I'm of the mind that believes they still had more to deliver in the early 80s, but perhaps The Hunter isn't that bad of a send off in hindsight. I adore the story, it's about a woman trying to play games with a man, and the woman ends up getting "played" by the man. Some might say that the band went at the material halfheartedly or without much passion, with Harry enjoying solo success with 1981's KooKoo.

Little Caesar" is a strange little ditty, but I really have a soft spot for it because it's so unique and quirky. However, one imitation, the lead single "Island of Lost Souls" (an attempt to recreate the global chart-topper "The Tide is High") works surprisingly well and features a memorable melody and lyrics from Harry. English Boys" is Harry and Chris Stein's melancholy tribute to "those English boys who had long hair", the Beatles, recorded the year after John Lennon's assassination in New York City, describing the innocence and idealism of the 1960s. The song opens with the sound of screaming monkeys, then the synth kicks in, and finally the killer drums. There are exceptions: Jimmy Destri’s “Danceway” is an organ-driven raver that rocks out to a rope-skipping beat, and Debbie Harry assays a sweetly backward-glancing vocal on “English Boys.The implication, I suppose, is that the pursuit of pleasure and excess finally overtakes the pursuer, and that you wind up lost on a spiral staircase of sensual diversion, left with only the diversion itself to contemplate.

By and large, though, The Hunter is an album of icy, otherworldly moods for moderns, a looking glass trained upon our own peculiar, self-consuming social mores. Island of Lost Souls” is the new LP’s “The Tide Is High,” complete with Ricky Ricardo horns, steel drums and jaunty ska beat. Despite their transparent Top Forty aspirations, these two songs do play into the record’s overall concept.Determined to end on a high at the same time as having the desire to pursue solo projects, particularly the band's lead singer and obvious focal point Debbie Harry (Deborah Harry), it seemed as if Blondie would take great memories of a string of hits with them as they went.

Orchid Club” summons you with tribal drumming that commences low, like something heard downriver, and then gets louder, as if you’d chanced upon some weird fertility rite. The band was a pioneer in the early American new wave and punk scenes of the mid- 70s, developing their sound in famous NYC clubs such as CBGBs. War Child”: a fierce electro-disco with stabs of percussion and wind instruments – again, a faultless track.

Though Harry’s pancultural heart is in the right place, her rap diction is about as convincing as, say, trying to imagine Dick Clark belting out “Soul Man. Songs like "(Can I) Find the Right Words (To Say)" aren't particularly memorable, but the subject matter - that of tackling crossword puzzles - must be one of the most bizarre foundations for a Blondie song. In the liner notes to the 2001 reissue of The Hunter, producer Mike Chapman stated, "I knew that we were in a different and far less accessible artistic space. Danceaway" was planned for release as a single in Canada (backed with "For Your Eyes Only"), but was issued only extremely briefly before the single was withdrawn.