The beloved Sheffield Britpop band return triumphantly with their first LP in 24 years, bringing familiar themes – nostalgia, sex, life changes, chance encounters, time passing, also wrapped in metaphors of celestial astronomy, all now from a candid, middle-aged perspective, but still with some crowd-pleasing bangers as well as Jarvis Cocker’s whispery, witty intimacy. The album is also dedicated to the band’s former bassist, Steve Mackey, who died in 2023.
Rousing, catchy lead single Spike Island harks back to scenes and feelings of the famous Stone Roses gig in Widnes in 1990, accompanied by a video cleverly recreating images of the band in the 1990s, but aside from the double-edged nostalgia, there’s also a possible reference to the band’s split, then long hiatus beginning in 2002 - “The universe shrugged, shrugged then moved on." Tina meanwhile tells of a chance encounter, and is another in a long line of Pulp songs musing on missed romantic opportunities (on this album see also another more hopeful one on Farmers Market) while later on the more intimate, close-mic My Sex candidly explores the issue of diminishing libido, with several drily humorous phrases “because the rocket doesn’t have enough fuel”, “My sex is not forever / It's two silences stitched together”, and more bluntly, “Hurry ’cos with sex, we’re running out of time.” It has some overlaps with Slow Jam, not as you might half hop or expect, a song about fruit preserves, but with the rather telling line: “you’ve gone from all you that could be to all that you once were”, and more directly on relationships and slowing down: “When love slows down /Slows down to almost nothing / When you're going through hell/ Well, how about you just keep going.” Perhaps this is a mantra for why, having toured on an off in between Cocker’s solo projects, they’ve all got back on the bus, and may perhaps these days, as Boy George once said, just prefer a cup of tea to sex. On that note, incidentally, Pulp even have tie-in Dragonfly Sencha-style merchandised green tea, so for them and fans, naturally embracing middle age to the full.
Also on that theme, Grown Ups is a catchy, storytelling strut of a song, and again sees that classic Pulp theme of time passing and life priorities changing. It’s a wonderful, dynamic number filled with Cocker wit and vivid images and references to “mature life decisions”, such as: “So you move from Camden/ Out to Hackney/ And you stress about wrinkles / Instead of acne” (incidentally keyboard player Candida Doyle is a long-term Hackney resident), with another Tina namecheck, planetary metaphor, and being initially surprised that “Jeremy Sissons” wasn’t joking when “said he, he moved near the motorway/ Well 'cause it was good for commuting.”
But alongside Spike Island, a likely clear crowd-pleasing favourite on their imminent tour (in which the band will make available special album edition only for ticket holders) is likely to be the spell-out chorus punch-the-air number Got To Have Love (accompanied by nostalgic Wigan Casino documentary video of 1975 footage). After this, the later stages of the album move to a more tranquil, exploratory musical landscape, further into the celestial metaphor perspective, from Partial Eclipse, and northern towns, guided by the Northern Star and Northern lights on the poignant, musically rangey, Scott Walker-influenced The Hymn of the North, and the gentle, poignant acoustic closer A Sunset. Most definitely back then, with a range of all the elements to thoroughly satisfy Pulp fans, and likely many new admirers too, Cocker and crew remain down-to-earth stars on the musical landscape, still very much to be cherished. Out on Rough Trade.
New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...
Feel free to recommend more new songs and albums and comment below. You can also use the contact page, or find more on social media: Song Bar X, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube, and Song Bar Instagram. Please subscribe, follow and share.
Song Bar is non-profit and is simply about sharing great music. We don’t do clickbait or advertisements. Please make any donation to help keep the Bar running: