Album of the Week: Pulp – More
Staff Review
“Oh, is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel?” asks the opening line of Pulp’s Sorted for E’s & Wizz, a playful but pointed critique of 90s rave culture. It ends with a more anxious question: “What if you never come down?” Of course, everyone who lived through that era has come down, crashed down, even. And those born since? In many ways, they’ve been born down.
Now, after 24 years, Pulp return with More, their first studio album since We Love Life, and 30 years since 1995’s Different Class made them cultural icons. In the years since, the world has unravelled: 9/11, climate collapse, housing crises, a pandemic, war, Gaza. We live in a state of endless acceleration, the future slipping through our fingers as we stare into glowing screens. The announcement of More was met with genuine, perhaps unexpected, delight.
What does a Pulp album offer in 2025?
For many, it’s escape. For others, discovery. For all, it’s a form of time-travel, back to a world that felt fuller, when the future held promise. More leans into this, not with nostalgia but with a clear-eyed gaze. Pulp always borrowed from the past, post-punk, synth pop, Britpop, but even at their peak, they felt like a band out of time.
Opening track Spike Island ties More back to the 90s, its title referencing the legendary Stone Roses gig that inspired Sorted for E’s & Wizz. Set to a disco-esque beat, Cocker sings, “This time I’ll get it right.” It’s bold, bright, and anthemic, capturing that tidal pull of Common People and Disco 2000.
Got To Have Love pulses with dancefloor energy, as Cocker declares, “Without love, you’re just making a fool of yourself.” It builds from whispered monologue to soaring strings, while Tina channels 60s Scott Walker in a humorous tale of obsession. Cocker’s eye for daily minutiae remains razor sharp, pathos wrapped in humour, sadness softened by wit.
Grown Ups, with its London Calling-style urgency, confronts modern life’s chaos and a refusal, or inability, to grow up. Farmer’s Market slows things down, a personal highlight that recalls Cocker’s first meeting with his wife, filled with warmth and romantic clarity. Background Noise is tender and melancholic, echoing past Pulp glories with, “I can’t remember the first time…” and the quietly devastating, “Love turns into background noise, like the buzzing of the fridge.” Partial Eclipse is dreamy and cinematic, closing with Cocker in “a bobbly cardigan and odd socks”, funny, bleak, and deeply human.
Final track Sunset mirrors We Love Life’s closer Sunrise, offering one last reflection on late capitalism’s toll. Its thesis? That real joy lies in the unmonetised, the unfiltered, the free. “I’d like to buy the world some time,” Cocker sings, “Some time, and some choice.”
More doesn’t shout to be heard. It simply reminds us what’s worth hearing. A return, a reflection, and a quiet kind of resistance.
