Having heard the listening party, a few thoughts I've had and which have germinated...

-- Spike Island - I felt this sounded a little too polished, like an off-cut off the Gorillaz album that James Ford produced. And the AI video soured me on it - Pulp have always embodied a sense of creativity and visual composure without needing to use planet-killing graphics generators. But while I still maintain that the production maybe over-smooths, this is a really excellent song. It's been written over the bass hook that meshes everything together, and it shifts on that groove, on the hips of the song, which is something all the best Pulp hits do too.
-- Tina - wow - it felt like an assault upon the senses in the best way possible. The lyrics absolutely MAKE this song, but the intricacy of the sounds, the veering and meshing of Latin to rock to Pulp stable - that's a sign of proper actual ORIGINALITY that many bands can't hack when it comes to making a reunion album. Lyrically it's marvellous and I love how Jarvis's phrases burst out of their containers, he's free to walk over the music, there's a sense of freedom here that there hasn't been in ages. The chorus still has that proper Pulp swell to it, breaking through and upwards like their best melodies too. I absolutely love it. I think it's worth the price of admission alone. I think it's top ten Pulp. It's so, so very good, and it's a worthy heir to the likes of "Pink Glove" and "Pencil Skirt" in that its sordid underbelly is connected to a sense of emotional need. In short, it's absolutely incredible.
-- Grown-Ups - desperately need to listen to this again - on first airing, I got a whiff of London Calling, did anyone else? I love the expanded outro, with Jarvis detailing his dream. It's amazing that a discarded 1998-era instrumental is now the THEMATIC SPINE of a FIRST SIDE of an album. And it's really good too. Jarvis's lyrics on this album really do make it, you know? I think it's his best since His 'N' Hers, all things considered. The dream he had is such a strong metaphor that it screams at you -- why has nobody articulated this before? And shout out to him deciding to have a go at some guy who said he 'likes commuting' like it's 59 Lyndhurst Grove. That did amuse me.
-- Slow Jam - holy mother of god - a top 20 Pulp track - McKinney so good here, and the lyrics retool Dishes but dig even deeper - that line, "I'm the resurrection now" - a perfect phrase. The instrumental, dipping and weaving - wowzers - it's so beautiful, so richly dripping with beauty, I need to hear it again. Fades away in a lovely way too. So splendid. It's slightly reminiscent of 'Someone Like the Moon'. God, Candida Doyle ought to be appointed Queen of the World. The keys are doing lovely things here.
-- Farmer's Market - this did less to me, like it was a nice pretty tune etc, and then his lyrics kicked in. This one has the best lyrics on the entire album. What better phrase for finding love at this stage of your life than his about meeting her and her being backlit by 'the fires at the edge of the world' -- it says in one line everything that 'Help the Aged' did half-ironically, and distils it into just one absolutely perfect line -- and then how he talks about her, I've seen the world's got to you too, nothing too bad just a flesh wound -- my oh my. What a poet. Jesus. Then he whispered 'stop working on the dream' and I actually ****ing lost it.
-- My Sex - this is still really really very good (although i'm not sure what I made of the numbers and characters at the end, need to listen again). But that's still a proper boffo bassline and I love the lyrics. Jarvis elbowing in on the current societal renegotiation of gender. Love that for him. Damon Albarn could never! A sense of really delicate instrumentation as far as I recall - everyone is pulling their weight and it really shows when you hear the song, it's so atmospheric and holds together so well
-- Background Noise - heartbreaking song - love how Nick (THE ESSENTIAL AND MUCH LOVED NICHOLAS BANKS, BEST DRUMMER OF THE 90S) cues up the chorus, it's an excellent detail that's really needed for the song to work - and it's done so well. I adored this at Hogmanay and I adore it now. Makes Happy Endings look like Fairground and I love Happy Endings. The way this thing swells up into its climaxes is tremendous, and I feel guilty that it's the only one I've heard live already yet it's probably quite low down on the album for me. I love it and was more excited for it than any other track, and I still think it's terrific, I've just been blown away by all the others.
-- Got to Have Love - JESUS ****ING H J I K L M N O P CHRIST - what a stone-cold BANGER this is, bigger and chart-readier than anything they've released since 'Disco 2000' - I can't believe they've got such a pristine morsel of proper Different Class era Pulp POP and rock and roll here, preserved in aspic, and now perfectly rescuscitated and ready for 2025. Jesus christ it's so good, it's so so good??? His speech, his spoken word bit? Mark's fantastic distorted solo?? (Mark is bringing the heat ALL OVER this album btw, he's the backbone of the ****ing sound). This is what I've been missing all of my life, 10/10/10
-- Partial Eclipse - they played this and went straight into Hardcore on the radio and that's forever how I'll think about this song. It seems a little sleepy and then BOOM he begins his spoken word bit, and Mark's guitar kicks in, and it suddenly becomes clearer and sharper than any of the mid-record slow ones on Hardcore ever did - Jarvis's lyrics are, again, sublime. When he talks about moving into sheltered accommodation, the sarky anxieties of Grown-Ups suddenly become grimly real. (The sequencing on this album is excellent)
-- The Hymn of the North - I missed the line 'you're all Northern stars', although it's nice to think that was just for Sheffield. I kind of thought "shame they've hacked off the ending for time" and then BAM it hit me, wonderful, incredibly crafted, what a way to bring the song to a close - starry and Sondheimy and beautiful. That's a Pulp classic right there. Top 5 on the album, it's so special.
-- A Sunset - to be brutally honest, yes an incredible song that's very relevant - all the allusions to climate anxieties, a sense of economic monotony, and the loss of the Leadmill - but as much as we already had the theme of 'sunsets' in the album, and a 'sunset' is a logical way to close, I felt this song was really teeing up another album, the 'angry' one he alluded to in the Hot Press interview? If it does end up as Pulp's last ever song on an album (barring Open Strings), then I think it's kind of promising more. I still love the way it swells up though, again. This is a Pulp album where I wouldn't want to skip a single track. They are all very very good - every song on here is excellent, and that includes A Sunset. You can really sense Candida's command over the soundscape yet again.



You can tell, much like Pulp themselves, that this album has benefited from a lengthy gestation period -- for time to develop and stew in the pot -- and the resultant crop has been clipped when it's just right. There's a continuity in the lyrics department that makes the album familiar, but a sense of experimentation and new development that makes the album exciting. And, if anything, it makes me mourn the twenty-four years spent without ANOTHER Pulp album, to develop and expand on the themes and ideas of We Love Life much like this album does -- but at the same time, perhaps this album needed that time in the pot.

Pulp Friction wrote:

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- very first impression was that it's maybe a little too slow/quiet, but oddly enough I didn't really have that impression second time around

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Same here, it seems to fade after a few listens. That may be due to a lot of parts being very subtle, things you dont hear the first or second time, then it clicks. 

Yeah Background Noise is about bit anti climax isnt it and borrows a bit of that Bowie« Heroes » guitar.

Hymn of the north as well I was expecting a really really enormous finale when its just a big one.

Also thought my sex was the professionnal part 2 but the feeling kinda goes away after a few listens. There are a lot of part on the record that sounds like something Pulp has done before.

not a fan of the slapbass on Slow Jam but I guess I Will have to get used to it. That where steve is missed. He had a very steve way of playing. Subtle, smart and not too « in your face » Bass.

Its a really strong comeback record and it makes me want more (more)

-- Edited by andy on Thursday 5th of June 2025 12:14:53 AM

Background Noise makes Something Changed sound like There's No Emotion. Nearly every song has the best spoken word bit you've ever heard in it. There genuinely isn't a weak link in here. Every single song sounds like it belongs in the top fifty of Pulp songs.