More feels richly lived-in yet remarkably contemporary, lifted by Richard Jones’ lush, cinematic string arrangements – they're particularly striking on Partial Eclipse, whose outro drifts into a moody, Giacchino-esque beauty, reminiscent of the title card score from Lost.

Album opener Spike Island instantly charms with producer James Ford’s recognisable percussion riding aside Jarvis Cocker, all shimmer and gossamer, its rhythmic flourishes crafting an inviting sonic warmth that makes familiarity thrilling rather than stale.

The album's emotional anchor, Grown Ups, is a sprawling meditation whose string-laden melancholy distills decades of mundane experience into something surprisingly transcendent. It's vintage Pulp: charmingly cynical yet quietly profound, showcasing their enduring capacity to tap into life's bittersweet mundanity. But it’s Got to Have Love that truly ignites, its Latin disco exuberance colliding spectacularly with Cocker’s visceral declarations on the necessity of love, capturing a moment of genuine emotional clarity and wall-of-sound scale that tilts the listener backward.

(The Skinny)

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.

(Mojo)