Separations 2012

This is not quite what I'd call essential Pulp (that begins with their next album, 1993's His n' Hers, and goes thru til 1998's This Is HardCore), but once you've thoroughly enjoyed the essentials, this is the best next place to go.The more i listen to this album, the more it grows on me, though. The first two tracks are amazing, and remind me of the best parts of Pulp's swansong, Trees (or something. I can't quite recall. I did not like their last album, but there were two good songs on it, and these two songs remind me of them). The second half of the album is a bit better than the first, beginning with the album standout, Countdown. Death II is also fantastic. The added tracks really perk this up a bit, too (Both Countdown and Death are reimagined). All in all, a very good earlier work from Sheffield's finest. Sorry Joe Cocker and Def Leppard.

I like the song death comes to town. I’m like obsessed with it. The other tracks are pretty good too. I like pulp I just recently found about them on YouTube and they’re awesome.

This is a fantastic album that I missed when I first got introduced to Pulp. Most of the album is very "up" and it finds its way into my music rotation on a very regular basis. My favourite tracks are probably "Love is Blind" and "Separations," although the whole album is fantastic. The track "Separations," in particular is really interesting - the first two minutes of the song are completely different in tone from the rest of the song. (This seems to be the case with many Pulp songs, but especially in this case.)Anyway, I rarely see this album mentioned, and it really deserves a listen.

It's funny, people keep discussing wether Common People, This Is Hardcore or We Love Life is the best PULP album, but never did I hear anyone mention Seperations, until I came along it by accidence in the record collection of a friend of mine. Not that I think this is PULP's best album, because I think all three mentioned above, AND Seperations, are equally brilliant, but each in it's own special way.This album features an unique combination of heavy disco sounds and a very dark theme. Take the opener, Love Is Blind, which is probably PULP's best track before The Fear - it starts out as a nice and qiet piece, but ends with some strange, or rarther bizarre lyrics, and all along it features that unique PULP sound, with Jarvis' vocals as fantastic as ever. The second track goes on in a more funny theme, about a man who dumped his girlfriend and now wants her back, except that she's found someone else - which he had deffinitely not counted on. The rhythms are strange but compelling, and I can exactly imagine Jarvis doing strange moves on the scene while performing this...She's Dead is perhaps the bands most somber piece ever, and very lovely, even if it's a bit too long. Again, a fantastic vocal performance by Jarvis. The title track is another favorite - the violin intro sounds quite unlike any other thing they did later, but it's ... well, brilliant ... and the lyrics, about a seperated couple, is very deftly written, and the change of sound in the song, when it goes from the one person to the other, is excellently done. It would have wanted it longer, but ok, can't have it all... Down By The River sounds very pleasant, but the lyrics are really scary, about a girl drowning herself in the river. It's got strong similarities to the theme of 'Wickermen', though this track might not be as refined as that one.The second half of the album is devoted to pure disco tracks, and the quality is really surprising - at first I thought it sounded like so much else, but the slight differences does all the difference - and noone is a match for Jarvis' vocals - whispered, hysteric, desperate, cold, sarcastic; he has it all in his voice. The last track, This House Is Condemned, was really a shock to me - it sound like a song by Jean Michelle Jarre or Kraftwerk - but it's really ... brilliant. I've never heard anyone come so close to condensing the sound of panic onto a recorded track.Though the lyrics on Seperations might not be as refined as what PULP has done later, every track seems worked through to perfection, and every time you hear it never layers seem to appear. And instead of being just Jarvis backed by some musicians, the band as a unity comes to their full right here, showing excellent keaboradplaying by Candida, as well as superb violin sections, drumming and bass playing. So though it's not as innovative as some later work, once Seperations has come into your CD player, it seems very - very - reluctant to leave it! Simply ... brilliant.

Considering the degree to which critics take a gleeful pleasure in bashing Pulp's pre-Island material, you might think that this would be unlistenable sludge. Fortunately, you would be entirely wrong. This is a dark album, but whereas Freaks was bleak in a small, claustrophobic way, this is highly melodramatic--"high tragedy," if you will. Anyway, despite what brainless reviewers may tell you, this is a very strong album. Jarvis's lyrics haven't reached their current level of sophistication, but they're still very good, and there's scarcely a weak tune on the album--the only less-than-inspiring number being the fairly bland She's Dead. Otherwise, it's all pretty great stuff: Separations is the most pathos-laden song, and it's quite brilliant, featuring some excellent violin work from Russell. Love is Blind, Don't you Want me Anymore?, and Down by the River are nearly as good, and This House is Condemned is truly bizarre and creepy. And of course, let's not forget about the deservedly well-thought of singly, My Legendary Girlfriend. This is really an album that any Pulp devotee should own, and it's the best place to start if you're thinking about looking into their mysterious early material.

A new start, and a proper start this time, with the urgent stomp of 'Love Is Blind', an instant classic. "The future is shining, like a giant metal beast. It shines so bright tonight, with its legs open wide..." The first song, and it's exhaustingly good. But with an "mmh...aah!" we're off into the next one, and it's precision and quality all the way. 'Don't You Want Me Anymore' nods back to their fellow Sheffielders once again, but what's less obvious is that this is an inversion of 'The Train from Kansas City' by the Shangri-las, told from the train passenger's viewpoint.The album is packed with pop references: 'She's Dead' reminds us of 'Honey' by Bobby Goldsboro, and 'Death II' channels Gene Pitney. On 'Separations', Pulp are fully-formed, and 'Death II' is a case in point. It's one of the best Pulp songs that many fame-era fans have never heard. Not because of the song itself, but because – never mind 'My Legendary Girlfriend' – it's the clarion call of what Pulp were going to become: this one could have gone on 'His 'n' Hers', but instead that album's backward glance would come with its earliest composition 'She's a Lady'. Which is Death in drag, if you get me.In his sleeve notes, Everett True quotes Jarvis Cocker on 'Countdown': "You leave school and you treat the rest of your life like a big countdown for something big that's going to happen." Yes. I remember that feeling. I'm sure we all do. The lyrics have stopped looking inwards entirely, and now look out into the shared, and – note the word – common, experience.This new edition is the version of the album to get, not least because it includes 'Death Comes to Town', the only non-album track recorded at the sessions, in its original, non-extended form (at the time, Fire cancelled the planned 7 inch) outside of the free CD with the 'Beats Working for a Living' book, on which it is horribly compressed. All of these remasters are sensitive and dynamic, with no brickwalling or overheating.All of this is a good thing, and I know that during my earlier review of 'Freaks' I said that Russell Senior's vocal turn 'Fairground' should have been at the end. Well, 'This House Is Condemned' might have served better as a b-side, which would have left room on the album for 'Death Comes to Town'. Well, you can now programme your CD player and pretend that's what happened. Not that 'This House...' is unworthy. It's a surprisingly successful stab at making a different kind of music without losing identity, and makes an interesting counterpoint to 'My Legendary Girlfriend'.So what about 'My Legendary Girlfriend'? This album's contribution to pop culture has seen the title co-opted for a dick-lit book and it's routinely cited as the moment where Pulp became, you know, Pulp. It's a brilliant record, and untarnished by the years, still lifting the nape hairs from the opening seconds, and demanding the mixture of concentration and abandonment so familiar to fans of the band. It's a direct descendant of Closer to You from Momus's 'The Poision Boyfriend', and both songs take their cue from Barry White. The story, as we found out the following year in the sleeve notes to the 'Babies' single, takes place the night before that of 'Sheffield: Sex City'.

If you want to understand where Pulp originally came from and how they sounded when Jarvis Cocker was a pretentious 23 year old nob strutting around Sheffield circa 1987/88 then buy this album. To put it into three words, it is brilliant. Pulp had been around a long time before finding popular success and for me, this album captures them at their very best, how they sounded when I was a 21 yr old nob strutting around Sheffield. Live Pulp were amazing and listening to this record shows you just how good they were. Personally I don't think Pulp have made a bad album but for me this is their best by a long long chalk.

Über Musik kann ich einfach nicht schreiben - sie ist Geschmackssache. Ich liebe die Gruppe Pulp und habe damals, als es sie noch gab, alles an CD's gekauft, was man bei uns erwerben konnte. - Leider kriegt man bei uns so gut wie nie die Bonus-Tracks. Jetzt habe ich einen, der es in sich hat. "Death Comes To Town". Kein gemütlicher Titel aber ein tollerSong. Alles andere habe ich schon gekannt. - Die Versuche mit Electronic-Pop oder wie man das nennt, gefallen mir weniger. Aber auf jedem Pulp-Album gibt es mindestens einen bis drei herzbrechende Songs mit viel Melodie, tollem Arrangement und der coolen Stimme von Jarvis Cocker. --- Also alles bestens.

This album was made for vinyl. The first album where Pulp found their sound. Good sound with this pressing. Recommended.

Es un disco de Pulp que para todo fan de esta agrupación debe uno de tener. El disco llegó antes de lo previsto. lo recomiendo ampliamente.