Back in April when lead single ‘Spike Island’ dropped, you reckoned that if the record possessed half its magnificence, there was one whopper of a Pulp album coming down the track. Turns out, it is indeed a belter, and something of an interpretative older brother, or revelatory uncle, to their magnum opus Different Class.

When, in our recent cover story, I mooted the latter opinion to frontman Jarvis Cocker, he breathed “maybe” – which isn’t a no!

So, let’s consider it. ‘Spike Island’ treads similar, tearing-down-of-mislabelled-utopianism territory to ‘Sorted For E’s & Wizz’; there is the unrequited love of ‘Tina’ duplicating ‘Disco 2000’; and ‘Got To Have Love’ preaches a similar rallying call for unity as ‘Mis-shapes’.

Okay, let’s not overkill the comparison. Just to say, the production throughout is stellar – producer James Ford fulfilling the Chris Thomas role on Different Class. The record makes you want to leap up to almost every song, whether alone in your bedroom, or in a field somewhere on the upcoming Pulp tour.

The spoken word orations on ‘Grown Ups’ and ‘Farmer’s Market’ are pure boss and pure Jarvis. While the lounge lizard vibe ‘My Sex’is maybe my favourite, ‘Partial Eclipse’ is perhaps the best distillation of Pulp – deep, flippant, epic and earnest all at once.

‘Hymn Of The North’, meanwhile, reflects on Sheffield through the ages. Where the closing track on 2001’s We Love Life was ‘Sunrise’, here we wrap with the lullaby ‘Sunset’, although methinks, and hopes, there is more Pulp down the tracks.

9/10

Out now

Read our Pulp cover story interview in the current issue of Hot Press: