Pulp
Just can’t get enough: Pulp feel the farce.
★★★★
More
ROUGH TRADE. CD/DL/LP
Class reunion: their first in 24 years, and one of their best.
THE RHYMING of “vicars” and “knickers” and a reference to Ingmar Bergman swiftly prove that at least one of Pulp’s idiosyncratic missions – loosely, to make existential crisis out of bedroom farce, or bedroom farce out of existential crisis – remains intact on this hearteningly fine comeback album. Pulp often seemed older and somewhat wiser than their Britpop peers in the 1990s, so new, reflective investigations on the drawbacks of adult responsibility (Grown Ups, a terrific cousin to New Order’s Sub-Culture) still feel of a piece with their classics. Critically, though, More is also a musical match for those records, with Jarvis Cocker’s excellent Jarv Is band fleshing out the Pulp line-up, and producer James Ford discreetly refreshing the kitchen-sink showstoppers and art-disco come-hithers. Plenty of Easter eggs for the fans – Background Noise is reminiscent of Bad Cover Version, and features Cocker musing “Don’t remember the first time” – but More is that rarest of reunion records: one that transcends nostalgia to actually enhance a band’s legacy.