published: 8 /
7 /
2025
Label:
Rough Trade
Format: CD
Remarkable comeback album of quirky genius, their first in 24 years, from Pulp
Review
Pulp started out as Britpop outsiders, breaking into a music scene then dominated by rather gloomy American grunge bands. But they soon became a huge success. With their witty and gifted frontman Jarvis Cocker, the Sheffield band secured their first Top Ten album with ‘His'n'Hers’ I 1994. They hit the front pages a couple of years later when Cocker wiggled his backside onstage during a Michael Jackson performance at the BRITS and, throughout the mid to late 1990s, they were seldom out of the news.
Now, suddenly, like their 90s contemporaries Oasis and Blur, Pulp are back again, finding themselves as big as in their Cool Britannia heyday. The band's 2023 tour ‘This Is What We Do For An Encore’, included headline shows at Finsbury Park and Latitude - and now Pulp are releasing their first new album for 24 years, ‘More’.
Jarvis, now 61,is joined by a trio of Pulp veterans - keyboardist Candida Doyle, guitarist Mark Webber and drummer Nick Banks - and all of them excel on this record! ‘More’[ really is a perfect Pulp album for 2025!
The LP revisits the disco-infused, keyboard-driven pop of yesteryear but adds more assured, mature musicianship plus age-appropriate lyrics which Pulp's many fans will appreciate. This is Britpop played by - and for - grown-ups!
‘More’ is front-loaded with its catchiest anthems, opening with ‘Spike Island’, a track inspired by a Stone Roses gig on the Mersey estuary in 1990 - but a song that examines why Cocker put Pulp on hold back in 2001 and then got them back together in 2011 and 2023. “I was born to perform, it’s a calling,” he sings. “I exist to do this: shouting and pointing.”
Powerful, lyrical numbers are delivered as ‘More’ progresses. The orchestral ‘Tina’ is about unrequited desire for a woman he sees on his morning commute whilst ‘Farmers Market’ is a pithy portrayal of middle-aged love. Cocker addresses ageing again on the stomping ‘Grown Ups’ which is a little reminiscent of a Madness number. - “So you move from Camden out to Hackney and you stress about wrinkles instead of acne”. There is a celebration of Sheffield's resilience on ‘The Hymn Of The North’ despite the decline of its traditional manufacturing industries. - “Northern lights will guide you home,” sings Jarvis, with a heartfelt hometown homage which seems so appropriate on this rewarding comeback album.
Jarvis Cocker has been at pains to stress that absolutely no AI was involved in any way in making this record. And that seems true - because it is doubtful whether the smartest artificial intelligence could ever compete with, let alone replicate, the sheer, quirky genius of Cocker and Pulp!
Track Listing:-
1
Spike Island
2
Tina
3
Grown Ups
4
Slow Jam
5
Farmers Market
6
My Sex
7
Got to Have Love
8
Background Noise
9
Partial Eclipse
10
The Hymn of the North
11
A Sunset
Band Links:-
http://www.pulppeople.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pulppeople
https://www.instagram.com/pulpchile/
Label Links:-
https://twitter.com/RoughTradeRecs
http://roughtraderecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/roughtraderec
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