Pulp Made a Melodically Rich Comeback

Out of the four big Britpop bands, I find Pulp's story the most interesting. While Blur, Oasis, and Suede enjoyed a stellar career from the start, heavily promoted by the British press, Pulp stumbled into the Britpop craze by accident. However, they were nominated for the Mercury Prize in 1994 for their album His ‘n’ Hers, and in 1996 they won the award with their album Different Class. Pulp simply came, saw, and conquered.

The rest of the story is not so simple. Above all, the frontman felt the weight of responsibility that made the last two albums, This Is Hardcore and We Love Life, a real ordeal. "We'd rather break up than go through the same thing a third time," Cocker admitted in promotional materials for this year's new release, explaining the reason for the band's breakup.

Therefore, the return in 2011 and 2023 had no other purpose than to treat long-time fans to a concert. However, rehearsing Jarvis' song "Hymn Of The North" for Simon Stephens' 2019 play Light Falls unexpectedly sparked a creative process that ended with the quartet and a number of collaborators spending three weeks recording a new album. It was named More. And as they say, sometimes the best things in life are unplanned. This certainly applies to Pulp's eighth studio record.

The album More was created when frontman Jarvis Cocker was going through personal turmoil – he was facing problems in his long-term relationship, he had lost his mother two years earlier, and the band had lost bassist Steve Mackey. The songs bear traces of these events. Not that we are spared the usual dose of sexual escapades in the lyrics, but they have a forgiving rather than sarcastic undertone. Jarvis no longer mocks the heroes of his stories (where he often indirectly plays the main role) but rather provides timeless commentary on events. For example, in the song "Got to Have Love", he sings poignantly that "without love, you’re just jerking off inside someone else".

The song "Tina" is a hymn to a woman he never met, while in "Farmers Market" he recalls how he first saw his current wife. An underlying theme throughout the album is growing up and coming of age, topics which Cocker strongly resisted in the past. This is evident in the number of times the word "love", previously taboo for Pulp, is used without irony... More is not a resigned, age-worn record. It is an album by an artist who has realised that he can still create and that this activity, along with the rest of the band, still fulfils him.

"I'm trying to figure out why we decided it was a good idea to record a new album," Jarvis Cocker repeatedly muses in interviews. "Obviously, it was partly related to Steve's death," he replies immediately. Pulp bassist Steve Mackey died in the spring of 2023. And although he decided not to participate in the second reunion tour, his influence on the band and its music remained significant. Before last year's North American tour, Jarvis Cocker met with the original band members – guitarist Mark Webber, drummer Nick Banks, and keyboardist Candida Doyle – to try out new musical ideas together.

Later, they were joined by members of the band JARV IS, which the singer formed in 2017 – bassist Andrew McKinney, violinist Emma Smith, percussionist Adam Betts, electronics artist Jason Buckle and string arranger Richard Jones. Together, they worked on a series of songs – some were unfinished or originally created for other purposes, others were completely new. Jarvis brought the first drafts of the lyrics to the studio.

What can musicians appreciate about the album?

The band invited James Ford, a big name in the production world, to the studio. We have come across his name a few times in Insounder's reviews section – he worked on albums by Arctic Monkeys, Fontaines DC, Black Country, New Road, Beth Gibbons, Blur and The Waeve. Such strong assets, combined with a sense of ease – the band really didn't owe anyone any new music – brought an unexpectedly powerful result. Baroque fluffiness, colourful arrangements, but above all, lush melodies.

What a joy it is to hear the energetic dance track "Got To Have Love", the playfully changeable "Tina", "Grown Ups", and the ballad-like "Slow Jam", "Partial Eclipse" and "Background Noise". The frequent use of strings does not weigh down the songs, but rather gently lifts them up. It is no surprise that the band includes at least six of the eleven new songs from More in their current concert setlists. In the end, the nearly quarter-century-long wait paid off. It resulted in an album that celebrates the band's poetics that aptly describes not only British everyday reality.

Pulp – More

Rough Trade 2025; 00:50:21

85 %