(Rough Trade)
The anthemic lead single from the band’s first album in 24 years casts a wary eye over their peak 90s fame – but also suggests that performing is irresistible

• Pulp announce More, their first album since 2001

It seems weirdly fitting that Pulp have premiered their first album in 24 years with a song that appears to fret about the validity of returning at all.

Of all the alt-rock artists hoisted to mainstream fame in the Britpop era, they were the ones who seemed least comfortable with the kind of attention it brought them: a perennially ignored band who’d spent a decade striving to get somewhere, only to find they didn’t much like it when they did. Something of the prickly, confrontational outsider clung to them even at the zenith of their success – 1995’s quadruple-platinum Different Class is an album packed with waspish, witty ruminations on the British class system – while 1998’s This Is Hardcore offered a paranoid and occasionally harrowing examination of their era as celebrities, something its dense, doomy sound also helped to draw to a close.

As a new compilation with unheard material is released, we assess the Cardiff legend’s diamonds and deep cuts

Shirley Bassey apparently hated this Bond theme, protesting that the lyrics were nonsensical. She never performed it live. It’s certainly not up to previous standards, but the disco version that accompanies the film’s end credits is worth hearing – better than her attempt to rejig This Is My Life for the 70s dancefloor.