BOSTON —  They may be pushing 40, but the New Kids are returning to the block.

The boy band New Kids on the Block, which sold 70 million albums in the 1980s and early '90s, has reunited and plans to release a new album and go on tour. The reunion comes 20 years after the release of the group's multiplatinum album, "Hanging Tough."

"The fan response to this has been incredible," band member Donnie Wahlberg told the Boston Herald.

Wahlberg said he was persuaded to get back together with his former bandmates -- Joey McIntyre, brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight and Danny Wood -- when they decided to record new music. Wahlberg said he wrote 80 percent of the new material with McIntyre and Jordan Knight.

"I had no interest going out on a nostalgia tour and singing the same material," said Wahlberg, 38.

But he added: "We absolutely will do the old songs for sure."

Producer Maurice Starr formed the group in Boston in the 1980s, hoping to recreate the success he had with another teen group from Boston, New Edition.

At the height of their popularity, New Kids sold out world tours, marketed millions of dollars in merchandise and spawned a Saturday morning cartoon.

The group disbanded in 1994. Wahlberg has acted on television and in movies, while Jordan Knight, McIntyre and Wood released solo albums. Jonathan Knight became a real estate developer.