302) Pulp - More

Pulp were huge and one of those rare breeds who not only stormed the charts, but the actual albums were good.

However, they say everything has a shelf life (says the man who has written hundreds of these reviews – ironic eh) and by the time their greatest hits was released it limped into the charts at number seventy-one. Pulp were no more.

They came back between 2011 – 2013 for a series of live dates and returned in 2022 for some well received shows, Steve Mackey was not part of these shows and sadly died March 2023, but a strong quartet of Jarvis Cocker, Nick Banks, Mark Webber, and Candida Doyle returned.

On Friday 6 June 2025 Pulp released their first record, More, in twenty-four years and the next day played the Hydro in Glasgow, and I was one of the sold-out crowd of over fourteen thousand. To put it simply they were magnificent so in a joyful drunken moment after the concert I ordered the record.

Was I was just reliving my youth and convincing myself that the new songs were good or does More deliver? Yes, it bloody does.

The four members of Pulp were joined by several members of Cocker’s Jarv Is project and all play and contribute to the music and Pulp are a nine-piece band on the back of the new record. If you get the opportunity to see them you will see they give the band a wonderful full-on sound and do justice to the songs, old and new.

We have eleven songs here, the late MacKay having two songwriting credits on Grown Ups and Got To Have Love the former a classic Pulp song telling us a story with an elevated chorus and the later released along with Spike Island as tasters for the record. Neither would have sounded out of place at their peak, but this isn’t a record from back when we were all younger Pulp are not expecting you to buy it because their name is on the front, this is a record for now.

Tina is a love song then we get the line “Were really good together cos we never met” and Jarvis has delivered a perfect lyric where we can all think of someone, we wanted to know but never did. Farmers Market is a love lament for later in life, both songs are masterful.

Background Noise is clever, imaginative and emotional and My Sex and A Sunset (magical line time “I’d like to teach the world to sing but I don’t have a voice”) are both enhanced by the backing singers and The Hymn of the North a heartfelt song to Cocker’s son over a lavish arrangement.

Bands who have been away from the recording studio for so long are not meant to deliver records this good.

More Please?

9/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: Got To Have Love