Simple Minds Announce 'Sacrosanct' Album With 'Beginner Boys' Single

09-03-2026

(BHM) Simple Minds are proud to announce the release of their brand-new studio album, Sacrosanct. Set to arrive January 29, 2027, via BMG, the album finds the lifelong collaborators Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill in supremely confident form on one of their most vital albums in decades; one that recaptures the magic and majesty at the very heart of Simple Minds. The band is heralding the announcement with Sacrosanct's first single, "Beginner Boys."

"Beginner Boys" is inspired by Kerr watching his twin grandsons grow up and thinking about what it means to raise a good man today - "how strength, tenderness, courage, and gentleness might still belong together, even when the wider culture around them can send mixed signals. It's less a statement than a question I hope they'll spend their lives answering for themselves." Featuring an outstanding, restrained vocal from Kerr, and the unmistakable shimmering guitar of Burchill, the song belies an infectious euphoria.

In the four years since 2022's top 5 UK album Direction Of The Heart, the band has been busier than ever, releasing a critically acclaimed career-spanning documentary, publishing a joint memoir (Uncut magazine and Rough Trade's "Books of The Year"), and delivering live shows across the world that have seen them continually lauded as one of the greatest bands of their generation. Last year alone, they played in front of over 1.5m people and some of their biggest audiences since 1985, on their hugely successful Global Tour. During this remarkable period, on a high from touring, they began crafting and recording their new album.

Their North American leg in 2025 inspired Kerr and Burchill to draw on their art rock and new wave roots after witnessing fans in cities they'd never before played react ecstatically to early songs such as "Sons and Fascination." This atmosphere prevails throughout Sacrosanct, and its eight brilliantly crafted songs have both simplicity and an ethereal directness.

The Magazine-inspired opening track, "Elysium" was named after the paradise of Greek myth, reserved for those who lived well or fought hard and is the natural counterpoint to the album's "King Of The Underworld," inspired by the figure Mephistopheles and whoever, or whatever, rules over our appetites. The life-affirming "Jerusalem (State of Mind)" draws on William Blake's dream of a Jerusalem that was less a city and more a longing for a better world. "Our Secrets Are The Same" directly explores the lifelong bond between Kerr and Burchill, a song about a remarkable friendship: two eight-year-olds who met on a Glasgow street and are still finishing each other's sentences 50-odd years on. The most "pop" moment on the album arrives in the form of "Songs," a celebration of the power of songs to lift you on good days, and pull you out of depression on harder ones when little else can.

Sacrosanct's two closing songs, "Alive In This Moment" and "The Next Right Thing," explore nostalgia from different perspectives. The former, with a trademark, uplifting Burchillian guitar intro, is about resisting the urge to reach back and, instead, to remain present, while the latter's elegiac beauty focuses on the passing of time and the loss of those we love.

Regarding the choice of album title, Kerr said: "We called the album Sacrosanct because after a lifetime of doing this - nearly 50 years of writing songs together - it's stopped feeling like a career and started feeling like something closer to faith. Calling the record Sacrosanct isn't an exaggeration. It's just honest."

Sacrosanct is an artistic triumph and the third album, alongside Walk Between Worlds and Direction of the Heart, in an emphatic trilogy.

"Making records and performing live is as much part of our lives now as when we started out," says Kerr. "We feel grateful to those who support new music from Simple Minds and look forward to seeing you all on our upcoming world tour."