Squeeze's Long Lost 'Trixies' Album Now Available
(HRPR) More than 50 years after it was written Trixies, the new album by Squeeze, is released today. One of 2026's most anticipated albums Trixies is the band's first album in eight years but the first they ever wrote. A collection of stories set in a fictional night club, Trixies, the album was written by the band's teenage founders Chris Difford (19) and Glenn Tilbrook (16) at the very start of their songwriting partnership. Now more than fifty years on, Squeeze have completed the circle and realized the vision the precocious teens had for the songs that, as the Guardian wrote, show that "all the Squeeze hallmarks of melody, romance and storytelling were there from the beginning."
Before the sky-high classics such as "Up The Junction," "Tempted," "Cool For Cats," "Another Nail In My Heart" and "Labelled With Love," before the 2008 Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, the Mojo Icon award, the quintessential Cradle To The Grave, the world tours and festival highlight sets, and before 2017's celebrated The Knowledge, there was Trixies.
The only problem with these songs - crime scene vignettes like "The Place We Call Mars" and "Don't Go Out In The Dark"; the riotous come-hither rapacity of "Why Don't You"; and the evocative acoustic scene setter "You Get The Feeling" - was that, back in 1974, the musical vision of the young creators exceeded their virtuosity. "We fully committed ourselves to songwriting but this was three or four years before we even got to make our first record. Long story short, these were songs that we just didn't have enough musical experience to record properly," explains Difford.
Fifty years on, and having rediscovered the original cassette, that problem no longer exists for the band whose live shows are legendary and who have played more than 600 shows since reuniting in 2007. So what better way to mark 50 years of Squeeze than to complete the circle and realize the vision they had for Trixies? "The songs that we wrote then astound me. I'm proud of them now, and I'm particularly proud that it was young us that did that. These are very much the same songs that we wrote then," says Tilbrook,"The only difference is that now I can teach the songs to the rest of the band. Back then, I didn't even know what the names of the chords were!"
Now this precocious opening volley of songs - under the guiding production hand of Squeeze's bassist Owen Biddle (The Roots, John Legend, Al Green) - finally gets to enjoy its moment in the spotlight. And by returning Difford and Tilbrook to the birth of their creative partnership, Trixies has acted as the catalyst to a latter-day songwriting surge. On the heels of Trixies, an album of brand new Squeeze songs - recorded concurrently with Trixies - is finished and set to follow in the future. "The act of revisiting the Trixies songs had me in tears," smiles Tilbrook, "partly because they're so good, but also because I'm aware of all the stuff that I've still yet to hear and write." The sentiments are echoed by Difford: "It really fills me with joy that at my age we can discover that we wrote such great songs when we were teenagers. I'm very proud of that." Stream it here
This Fall, Squeeze will also take the stage at the iconic Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on September 19 alongside special guests Adam Ant and The English Beat, followed by an appearance at the Bourbon & Beyond Festival in Louisville, KY on September 26 (TICKETS). Later this autumn, the band will embark on their most ambitious UK tour to date, the 16-date Tried, Tested and Trixies Tour, which will see Squeeze headline several arenas for the first time - including a hometown show at London's O2 Arena just three miles from where the band began - with singer, songwriter and activist Billy Bragg joining as Very Special Guest.
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