Pulp spent the first 17 years of their career, wishing they were massive, then when they did manage that with 1995’s omnipresent Different Class, they decided they didn’t like it and used their 1998 follow up This Is Hardcore as a form of self sabotage, before fizzling out with no one’s favourite Pulp album We Love Life back in 2001.
But now, after sporadic gigs over the last couple of years, they are officially back in the land of new material, and like fellow four-letter Brit-poppers Blur, they now have no pretensions for fame and can release a record free of any real pressure, people are just enjoying the fact that they have them back in their musical universe, whatever the material is like (yep, we all just pretended to like The Magic Whip).
Which brings us to More.
We’ve all heard the funkily catchy comeback single, ‘Spike Island’, which opens proceedings here, frontman Jarvis Cocker explaining his raison d’etre mission statement, presumably his reason for reforming the band, “I was born to perform, it’s a calling. I еxist to do this. Shouting and pointing”. It’s one of the only two big disco (2000) bangers to grace the record, there’s nothing else so blatantly commercial at play here.
The Divine Comedy-esque ‘Tina’ sees Cockers’ voice reach previously unseen hoarse levels, deeper than one would remember, but his dramatic, kitchen-sink one-track-mind is still intact with the tale of “screwing in a charity shop, the smell of digestive biscuits in the air”, but it doesn’t really take off to the same level as the opener, as hard is the excellent orchestration is trying.
Jaunty six-minute opus ‘Grown Ups’ recounts a Dexy’s stomp, full of Jarvis-ish vocal noises and flourishes, but it all starts to feel a bit like hard work, the words are always humorous and story telling is on point, but the tunes don’t really do the words any favour, it’s all a bit unnecessarily drawn out, as if they are trying too hard to meet people’s perception of what Pulp should be.
And it gets worse before it gets better. ‘Slow Jam’ and ‘My Sex’ are dreadful, and therefore ‘Farmers Market’ suffers by being stuck in the middle of them, like a rose between two overgrown thorns, and you start to wonder if they should have bothered coming back at all.
Luckily for us all, it ends magnificently.
Starting with glorious second single/banger, ‘Got To Have Love’, it’s as if they have flicked a switch, and decided to become the classic, confident, effortless Pulp of old. ‘Background Noise’ and ‘Partial Eclipse’ are more laid-back, with Cocker sounding much more engaged than on anything the mid-album lull has to offer, the latter track evoking late-Beautiful South of all things, but the very best is yet to come.
The song that instigated this whole record by being the first to see the light of day whilst playing live, ‘Hymn Of The North’ is sublime, the goosebump inducing “just one thing” crescendo part way through is worth the admission fee alone, a glorious piece of nostalgia celebrating something of a previous life, “northern lights will guide you home, northern lives just like your own, northern rain turning into a flood, so don’t forget your northern blood.” Closer ‘A Sunset’ is equally as dead-panningly triumphant, “I’d like to teach the world to sing, but I do not have a voice”, Cocker regrets, over some sparse, gorgeous strings.
It’s no Different Class or His ‘N’ Hers, but how could it be, life’s moved on, they’ve moved on, Cocker stays on the right side of his sauce-laden persona throughout, which is a relief, as it would have been a lot less palatable than it would have been 30-odd years ago.
So, overall whilst it’s lovely to have them back, but maybe a little less would have made this record so much More.
