"This time I'll get it right,"
Jarvis Cocker
sings on
More
, an album that appeared nearly a quarter-century after the band's presumed swan song
We Love Life
. Though that album's brooding acoustic panoramas were gripping, as a final statement they were anticlimactic.
Cocker
and company give fans more of what they want on
, but they choose what they revisit wisely. They'd already figured out on
that a reflective tone and slower pace was what suited them best post-Britpop, and that remains true as they contemplate the difference between aging and maturity. The band broached this topic on
This Is Hardcore
's "Help the Aged" (which
wrote at the ripe old age of 33), but the passage of time has only imbued their thoughts with more humor and pathos. And while
's sound leans into influences that suggest the autumn of one's years --
producer
Scott Walker
,
Serge Gainsbourg
, even
Frank Sinatra
-- its songs were road-tested on
Pulp
's electrifying 2023 and 2024 tour dates and recorded in three weeks, so things never get too sedate. On
and
attempted to put as much distance between themselves and Britpop as they could; on
, they bridge that gap with integrity. Named for the venue of a 1990
Stone Roses
concert, the celebratory "Spike Island" begins the album with a burst of nostalgia, albeit tempered by
's chronic self-awareness ("I was born to perform, it's a calling/I exist to do this, shouting and pointing"). When they confront
's midlife crises,
come into their own.
's magnetism as a storyteller is at a peak -- he's still revealing the sleaze in posh surroundings and the romance within the mundane with unerring aim, and if his characters are a little different two decades later, they're still true to form. On "Grown Ups," he finds out just how strange it is when we're all fully grown (people "stress about wrinkles instead of acne" and move near the motorway for commuting). While "Tina"'s lonely fantasies and novelistic details feel directly descended from
His 'n' Hers
, there's a newfound tenderness around the song's edges.
's wit is still razor-sharp (particularly on the irony-drenched finale, "A Sunset"), but their heart is the biggest it's been since
Different Class
. "Farmers Market" suggests that the dream-spinning magic of love at first sight can be even sweeter later in life; conversely, the ordinariness of fading love on "Background Noise" makes it all the more gutting.
might be
's most impassioned album, with an urgency that courses through "My Sex" and the zealous disco centerpiece "Got to Have Love," where
urges his audience to "wake up and face the consequences." He and the rest of the band may be older, but they never sound as weary as they did on
. This time, they do indeed get it right --
is classic
, aged to near perfection. ~ Heather Phares