ADRIAN THRILLS reviews Pulp: More (Rough Trade): Britpop for grown-ups...it's a perfect Pulp album for 2025
Breaking into a music scene then dominated by glum American grunge bands, Pulp were the Britpop outsiders who became massive.
Fronted by a witty English eccentric in Jarvis Cocker, the Sheffield group secured their first Top Ten album with 1994's His 'n' Hers, and became front-page news two years later when Cocker wiggled his backside onstage during a Michael Jackson performance at the BRITs.
Like their 90s contemporaries Oasis and Blur, they are returning to find themselves as big as in their Cool Britannia heyday.
Their 2023 tour, This Is What We Do For An Encore, included headline shows at Finsbury Park and Latitude – and they've now come up with their first new album in 24 years.
With Jarvis, 61, joined by a trio of fellow Pulp veterans – keyboardist Candida Doyle, guitarist Mark Webber and drummer Nick Banks all excel here – More is a perfect Pulp album for 2025.
Out in a week's time, it revisits the disco-infused, keyboard-driven pop of yesteryear while adding more assured musicianship and age-appropriate lyrics: Britpop played by grown-ups.
It's a record front-loaded with its catchiest anthems. It opens with Spike Island, a track inspired by a Stone Roses gig on the Mersey estuary in 1990, but in reality a song that examines why Cocker put Pulp on hold 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.'
He delivers lyrical zingers as the LP progresses.
The orchestral Tina is a stalker-ish song about unrequited desire for a woman he sees on his morning commute; Farmers Market, a pithy portrayal of middle-aged love.
He addresses ageing again on the stomping, Madness-like Grown Ups: 'So you move from Camden out to Hackney, and you stress about wrinkles instead of acne.'
The quality dips on ballads Slow Jam and Partial Eclipse, but More otherwise finishes strongly.
The swirling disco-pop of Got To Have Love is bound to be a highlight of next month's UK arena shows.
There's also, on The Hymn Of The North, a celebration of Sheffield's resilience despite the decline of its manufacturing industries.
'Northern lights will guide you home,' sings Jarvis, capping a warm, rewarding comeback with a hometown homage.
He insists that 'no AI' was involved in making the album, and that feels right.
Artificial intelligence would struggle to replicate the quirky genius of Pulp.
More is out on June 6. Pulp start a UK tour on June 7 at OVO Hydro, Glasgow (ticketmaster.co.uk).
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