Stood there, near the front after being caked in sweat, tears and booze, comes a new Pulp song. Process it if you can. The legends of the UK music scene are still going strong, laying dormant for a decade and springing back to life with a run of sold-out shows. Capping their double bill at Sheffield’s Utilita Arena comes Hymn of the North, a neat little number penned by frontman Jarvis Cocker for the stage. But it seems to have gone unnoticed since its first appearance. Retrofitting it as the first of two, hopefully more, new Pulp songs, comes this track of yearning and inevitable nostalgia. But this is not a coy number – that would not be particularly Pulp-y. Instead, tender riffs and rigid keyboard playing guide Hymn of the North deep into the heart, where it was so clearly aiming for.
Simon Stevens may have used it in a stage play but, if honesty fits the bill, the likelihood of hearing it in this form is slim. But here it is, performed for the first time by the band who gladly bring it under their wing, rattling it out on stage. Candida Doyle and Jarvis Cocker, the latter looking as slightly scared to perform new material as he was on Background Noise at Corona Festival just a few months later. A slower ballad which displays a love and fear of emptied factories and those who did not recover from the death of Sheffield’s industrial movement are paid tribute to with this one. Hymn of the North has a further reach than this though, with the wider efforts of the North, indeed, included.
From Sheffield up to Newcastle and back down to the port towns in Hull and beyond comes a unity captured in Hymn of the North. It springs to life with quivering, James Bond-like strings, something Pulp has brushed shoulders with before. Hymn of the North builds and rises as tenderly, movingly, as it comes down. Where and when an official release will drop, who knows? For now – the recordings of a gig way back in summer are all which serve. But what a night it was, cutting shapes at The Leadmill after hearing the world debut of a Pulp song. Not their finest writings, the repetition of the Northern Star a tad on the nose though describing those in attendance as Northern Stars is a neat touch and a solid way to end this one.
With Hymn of the North and Background Noise now out there, all Pulp fans can do for the time being is speculate. Wonder whether or not there is further material on the horizon, or if this is an After You situation. More, more, more. Pulp has opened the valve of new material and the relentless onslaught which comes from the demand and pressure of said releases is right there on the horizon. This is what they do for an encore, after all. Hymn of the North is a very solid release, one which will surely grow in favour once it receives the neat little package release it is surely gunning for alongside Background Noise and who knows what else is to follow. For now, tender displays of love to the north and those whose jobs were sacrificed in sickening cuts – something Pulp has dabbled with before on The Last Day of the Miner’s Strike – will do.
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