PULP More (Rough Trade) — When the prospect of reuniting came up for the members of the band Pulp, surely the question was less “Why?” than “Why not?” In the Britpop battles of the nineteen-nineties, when Oasis and Blur were jousting over who got to the be the new Beatles, Pulp was lounging in the borderlands content to be the Kinks, plying sardonic, brilliant pop that ensnared critics and befuddled record buyers. If the world has only grown more mad and cynical in the roughly quarter of a century that’s passed since the last Pulp studio album, the time is probably right for their tuneful insolence. Appropriately titled More, the new album assembles most of the core players in Pulp (bassist Steve Mackey passed away in 2023) and brings touring members into the fold for a set of tracks that are acts of glorious overabundance. Pulp sounds neither stuck in the past nor reinvented for a new age. They are carousing in some stylish purgatory where Northern Soul and Scott Walker–style grandiosity were the law of the pop land. Album opener “Spike Island” gleams with such brightly blithe melding, and “My Sex” is all swagger, even as it awkwardly nips at more modern mores of gender reckoning. “The Hymn of the North” is a tender song that swells to become a gushing epic, and “Got to Have Love” simple caves in to a full disco thrust. As always, frontman Jarvis Cocker is the magnetic center of every song, acting as much as singing the lyrics. On “Grown Ups,” which is arguably the track imbued with most of the old magic, that means Cocker swans aggressively through lyrics about the withering mundanities of middle-aged life: “And somehow this leads to mature life decisions/ Like the one that I heard of from Jeremy Sissons/ Who said he moved near the motorway/ Cos it was good for commuting.” He sprinkles in a lightly interjected “Are you sure?,” echoing a memorable line from the the classic Pulp song “Common People,” as if emphasizing that Pulp still has more than enough confident brattiness in them. Have some more More with these cuts: “Tina,” “Background Noise,” and “A Sunset”

LIFEGUARD Ripped and Torn (Matador) — Drummer Isaac Lowenstein, of the Chicago Lowensteins, was in a band with his sister. So was his buddy Asher Case, who plays bass. That bad was Horsegirl. Eventually, the boys were out of the band, and Horsegirl went on to make a couple exceptional album with the promise of more greatness to come. Now, it’s the dudes’ turn. Lowenstein and Case teamed with guitarist Kai Slater to form Lifeguard, and Ripped and Torn is their first full-length to get proper national release. It features twelve tracks running a total of thirty minutes and change, which tells a good part of the story. These are blistering rock songs high on punk’s fumes, all crammed together as if Lifeguard cant be bothered to take a breath between assaults. The trio are determined to test the bounds of their instruments, wrenching tuneful noise out of them on “A Tightwire” and concocting just over a minute of splendid pounding clatter for “Music for 3 Drums.” The feedback on “It Will Get Worse” squawks marvelously like a poorly oiled hinge. Even as Lifeguard distinguishes themselves with their volume, they are not thrashing as its own end goals. There is musicianship and true song craft at play across the album. The magnificent likes of Hüsker Dü” and the Fall are their clear ancestors. On some tracks, such as “Under Your Reach,” they even approach the unassailable accomplishment of the Kinks in their garage rock mode. Plain and simple, Lifeguard is bringing real rock ‘n’ roll. Tear into the following tracks: “How to Say Deisar,” “Like You’ll Lose,” “Ripped + Torn,” and “T.L.A.”