Pulp finally back for more friction

Their first album since 2001 is everything you'd expect from Pulp - smart, insightful and only occasionally so-so.

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Opener Spike Island manages to be both swaggering and sombre. Inspired by the Stone Roses' over-mythologised 1990 festival in Widnes, Cheshire, it finds Jarvis Cocker telling us: "I exist to do this - shouting and pointing."

But he's done much more, including famously mooning "messianic" Michael Jackson at the Brit Awards in 1996. ("Jacko's Pulp Friction!" and "He's off his Cocker!", screamed headlines.)