Pulp – More (2025) [FLAC 24bit/44,1kHz]

Pulp – More (2025)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 50:21 minutes | 581 MB | Genre: Alternative Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rough Trade

WORDS FROM JARVIS ON “MORE” “This is the first Pulp album since “We Love Life” in 2001. Yes: the first Pulp album for almost 24 years. How did that happen? Well: when we started touring again in 2023, we practiced a new song called “Hymn of the North” during soundchecks & eventually played it at the end of our second night at Sheffield Arena. This seemed to open the floodgates: we came up with the rest of the songs on this album during the first half of 2024. A couple are revivals of ideas from last century. The music for one song was written by Richard Hawley. The music for another was written by Jason Buckle. The Eno family sing backing vocals on a song. There are string arrangements written by Richard Jones & played by the Elysian Collective. The album was recorded over 3 weeks by James Ford in Walthamstow, London, starting on November 18th, 2024. This is the shortest amount of time a Pulp album has ever taken to record. It was obviously ready to happen. These are the facts. We hope you enjoy the music. It was written & performed by four human beings from the North of England, aided & abetted by five other human beings from various locations in the British Isles. No A.I. was involved during the process. This album is dedicated to Steve Mackey. This is the best that we can do. Thanks for listening.”Can you ever recapture lightning in a bottle? Pulp’s eighth album—the band’s first in 24 years—makes a strong case for it. Though they split up in 2002, there have been more than a few reunion shows, and staying out of the spotlight, it seems, was never really an option. “I was born to perform/ It’s a calling/ I еxist to do this/ Shouting and pointing,” frontman Jarvis Cocker sings on “Spike Island” (while name-checking a Mott the Hoople album, no less). Packed with punchy disco bass and comet-streak guitar—not to mention Cocker’s signature yelps and exaggerated sighs, meeting at some Venn diagram of sexy, world-weary and awkward—it draws inspiration from British legend: the Stone Roses’ infamous outdoor 1990 gig of the same name. That concert’s taken on mythical status over the years, but in reality, Pulp guitarist Mark Webber has admitted, “it didn’t sound very good, it was windy and the vibe wasn’t there.”

The clash of memory and reality is used as metaphor for Pulp’s own reformation, with Cocker looking back on his band’s pinnacle and admitting, “I was playing to type.” The Spike Island story is a familiar one, as it also inspired the band’s classic “Sorted for E’s and Wizz.” Indeed, Cocker & Co. are in a recycling mood for More. With its trembling strings and reference to Jesus, “Slow Jam” feels like a This Is Hardcore outtake. Terrific “Grown Ups” actually started as a demo for that 1998 album—and includes a ticklish Easter-egg callback to “Common People,” as Cocker intones, “Are you sure?” The 61-year-old singer is still grappling with aging: “Life is too short to drink bad wine … ” he sings. “And nobody wants to grow up.” But the whole band sounds great, even as there is the poignant absence of longtime bassist Steve Mackey, who died in 2023. Webber’s slide guitar is blinding on “Got to Have Love,” a galloping bit of ABBA-esque histrionics that reminds you producer James Ford worked with Arctic Monkeys. It’s about how, Cocker has said, ​​”‘Love’ is a word I was unable to say until I was approaching 40 … I have now learnt how to say it whilst keeping a straight face.” In fact, the song, which includes a characteristically great build and explosion, finds him spelling out “L-O-V-E” like the world’s most louche cheerleader.

Powered by Burt Bacharach-style piano and a swinging jazz beat from drummer Nick Banks, “Farmers Market” is a real-time culmination of “Help the Aged”—but with the aging helping each other (“That’s when I saw you there/ In the car park of the farmer’s market … I stammered some pleasantries as I walked back to the car/ And then I thought, ‘Hold on/ Are these groceries really that important?'”). There are swooning ballads (“Partial Eclipse”), funky soul (“My Sex”) and a Richard Hawley co-write, “A Sunset,” that interpolates the lyrics of “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” and features Brian Eno and his family singing back-up. (“The first rule of economics/ Unhappy people, they spend more,” Cocker memorably explains.) “Background Noise” is pure Pulp high drama. And “The Hymn of the North” offers sweeping halcyon comfort and a plea from Cocker not to forget him (as if): “Please stay in touch with me in this contact-less society … the Northern star leads back to me.” – Shelly Ridenour

Tracklist:

1-1. Pulp – Spike Island (04:42)
1-2. Pulp – Tina (03:32)
1-3. Pulp – Grown Ups (05:56)
1-4. Pulp – Slow Jam (05:06)
1-5. Pulp – Farmers Market (04:30)
1-6. Pulp – My Sex (04:25)
1-7. Pulp – Got to Have Love (04:52)
1-8. Pulp – Background Noise (03:41)
1-9. Pulp – Partial Eclipse (04:38)
1-10. Pulp – The Hymn of the North (05:40)
1-11. Pulp – A Sunset (03:14)

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