More (stylised as More.) is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Pulp, released on 6 June 2025 on Rough Trade Records. Produced by James Ford, it is the band's first studio album in twenty-four years following We Love Life (2001) and is their first album since Freaks (1987) without bass guitarist Steve Mackey, who died in 2023.[4] Mackey is credited as a co-writer on two songs.
The returning four core members of Pulp – vocalist Jarvis Cocker, keyboardist Candida Doyle, drummer Nick Banks and guitarist Mark Webber – were joined in the studio by touring members Andrew McKinney (bass guitar), Emma Smith (violin) and Adam Betts (various instruments), who had previously worked with Cocker on his solo project Jarv Is and its 2020 studio album, Beyond the Pale. Current Pulp touring violist Richard Jones also contributed to the recording process.
Released to widespread critical acclaim, the album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, becoming the band's first number one album in over twenty-seven years, since the release of This Is Hardcore in 1998.[5]
Artwork
The cover by graphic designer Julian House is based on a photograph taken by Jarvis Cocker in the afternoon on 15 July 2024 near Kerlingarfjöll, Iceland whilst out for a walk on holiday with his son, Albert.[6] The original picture was modified to show cardboard cutouts of band members from the cover of Pulp's Different Class (1995).[7]
Promotion and singles
The lead single, "Spike Island", was released on 10 April 2025, accompanied with a music video.[2] It reached number 26 on the BillboardAdult Alternative Airplay chart the following June,[8] marking the first time that a Pulp song had appeared on any radio airplay chart in the United States.[9] The song received a 7" vinyl release with non-album B-side "Open Strings" on 23 May 2025[10] and subsequently topped the UK Physical Singles chart.[11]
The second single, "Got to Have Love", was released on 22 May 2025 with a music video that included footage of dancers from the Tony Palmer documentary The Wigan Casino (1977).[1]
Following the release of More in June,[1] Pulp revealed the third single, "Tina", on 21 July 2025. Like the previous singles, the song was accompanied by a music video by Julia Schimautz of DTAN Studio, Berlin, with lyrics animated by Gaussian Studio.[3]
On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, More received an average score of 83, based on 23 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim".[15] Another review aggregator, AnyDecentMusic?, gave the album an 8.0 out of 10, based on 31 critical ratings.[14]
In a review for AllMusic, Heather Phares wrote that after Different Class, "Pulp attempted to put as much distance between themselves and Britpop as they could; on More, they bridge that gap with integrity.... [Cocker] and the rest of the band may be older, but they never sound as weary as they did on This Is Hardcore and We Love Life.... More is classic Pulp, aged to near perfection."[16] In a 7.5/10 Pitchfork review, Nina Tavakoli wrote "though the album still has grounding in big fat basslines and BPMs that occasionally flirt with disco, the distinct chug of longtime bassist Steve Mackey... is missing all over", then adding "But Pulp remains resolutely Pulpy, and the ingredients and pillars that are absent are outpaced by what still is."[23] Awarding the album 4 stars out of 5, Mojo's John Mulvey stated, "If Pulp seem older and wiser – allbeit no less fun – now, they often seemed older and somewhat wiser than their Britpop peers in the 1990s", concluding that More "is greater than the sum of its fan service parts – that rarest of reunion records, in fact: one that transcends nostalgia to actually enhance a band’s legacy."[21]
↑ "Got to Have Love" contains a sample from "Invention" by Nick Ingman.[27]
↑ The writing for "A Sunset" is co-credited to the Earth, which allows a portion of income generated to be alloted toward Brian Eno's charity initiative EarthPercent.[28]
Personnel
Credits adapted from the CD liner notes[27] and Tidal.[26]
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