Britpop Legends Pulp Announce First Album in 24 Years, Share New Song ‘Spike Island’

Britpop legends Pulp have shared news of their first album in 24 years. The new LP, More, will be released on June 6 via Rough Trade, and will end their fan’s long wait for a follow-up to 2001’s We Love Life.

The Jarvis Cocker-led band made the announcement on Lauren Laverne’s BBC 6 Music show on Thursday morning (Apr. 10) and shared the first taster in lead single “Spike Island.” Take a listen below.

Rumours of a new album had swirled in recent years following their reunion shows in 2023. The band split for the first time a year after 2002’s We Love Life, then reunited for a string of shows between 2011 and 2013, before another decade-long hiatus. During the tour they began playing new songs titled “Hymn of the North,” “Background Noise,” “Spike Island,” “My Sex,” and “Farmer’s Market,” all of which will appear on More.

In late 2024, the band announced they had signed a record deal with Rough Trade, following their time on Island Records. The group released a standalone single, “After You,” in 2013.

In an accompanying statement, Cocker said, “Well: when we started touring again in 2023, we practiced a new song called ‘Hymn of the North’ during soundchecks & eventually played it at the end of our second night at Sheffield Arena. This seemed to open the floodgates: we came up with the rest of the songs on this album during the first half of 2024. A couple are revivals of ideas from the last century.”

He added, “The music for one song was written by [former Pulp member] Richard Hawley. The music for another was written by [All Seeing I band member] Jason Buckle. The Eno family sings backing vocals on a song. There are string arrangements written by Richard Jones and played by the Elysian Collective.

“The album was recorded over 3 weeks by James Ford in Walthamstow, London starting on November 18 2024. This is the shortest amount of time a Pulp album has ever taken to record. It was obviously ready to happen.” He added in a closing note that “no A.I. was involved during the process.”

The band is currently made up of Cocker, Candida Doyle (keyboards), Nick Banks (drums) and Mark Webber (guitar). Longstanding bass player Steve Mackey, who performed on their hit albums His N Hers (1994) and Different Class (1995), died in 2023 following a short illness.

In the coming months Pulp will play a number of shows in the U.K. including arenas in Glasgow, London, Birmingham and Manchester. They will co-headline a number of shows with LCD Soundsystem later this year in North America.

Pulp’s More tracklist

1. “Spike Island”
2. “Tina”
3. “Grown Ups”
4. “Slow Jam”
5. “Farmers Market”
6. “My Sex”
7. “Got to Have Love”
8. “Background Noise”
9. “Partial Eclipse”
10. “The Hymn of the North”
11. “A Sunset”