WORTH A LOOK?: ****

Tracklist: Spike Island; Tina; Grown Ups; Slow Jam; Farmers Market; My Sex; Got To Have Love; Background Noise; Partial Eclipse; The Hymn Of The North; A Sunset

30 years ago we watched Pulp headline Glastonbury and never dreamed that 28 years later at their Eventim Apollo gig we’d be yearning for new material from them.

• Read on for reasons including where to see them on tour this year including The 02

After that 2023 gig we wrote: ‘This Is What We Do For An Encore? The show was a riot of nostalgia and the best we’ve ever seen them live but something changed and we’d love for Pulp to release their 1st new album since We Love Life in 2001.’

2 years later and here we are listening to More, the band’s 1st new album in 24 years, a week before they play 2 headline gigs at London’s The 02.

And the good news is that, while this is no Different Class, there’s plenty here that deserves its place in those sets at The 02 next week and perhaps even a surprise return to Glastonbury Festival before the month is over.

It’s a joy to have frontman Jarvis Cocker’s thoughts on ageing and for us Grown Ups is a key track not least because musically it evokes 1 of our favourite tracks by the band – and Common People follow up – the outsider anthem MisShapes.

Cocker’s apprehensive: ‘And we’re hoping that we don’t get shown up, ’cause nobody wants to grow up.’ as well as the funnier: ‘One last sunset, one final blaze of glory and I know it’s all about the journey not the final destination. But what if you get travel sick before you’ve even left the station.’

Musically Background Noise reminds of Pulp at their most moving on Something Changed and there’s a real melancholy to: ‘Love turns into Background Noise, like this ringing in my ears, like the buzzing of a fridge you only notice when it disappears.’

Pulp went off the boil quickly after 1995’s Different Class but were occasionally able to bottle something special afterwards and the final tracks remind of 2001’s We Love Life.

A Sunset reminds of the aforementioned’s Sunrise with its natural comparison and the withering: ‘I went to see the northern lights but they were pale and weak and not as advertised.’

This sense of place is re-affirmed by the almost Bond-like in places The Hymn Of The North with its: ‘Northern lights will guide you home’ refrain.

Lead single Spike Island was our May song of the month. We said: ‘While Spike Island may wish to lyrically convey some of the magic of a track like Sorted For Es and Whizz, it’s only got us swaying slightly rather than burning up the dancefloor like a Disco 2000.’ 

Remarkably follow-up Got To Have Love is as good as anything on best album Different Class from 1995 and yet its evocation of northern soul with an extremely catchy chorus and understandable sentiment enhanced by the Wigan Casino footage of the video succeeds in exploring a sound that isn’t just rehashing what’s worked most memorably for the super group previously.

We have the new album of Pulp material we wished for, bassist Steve Mackey who died 2 years ago would be proud and we can’t wait to join the band at The 02 next week for a show beginning at 8pm without support.

More? Yes please.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Pulp Tickets
• Have you seen Pulp before and what did you think of this album? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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