Squeeze - Trixies (2026)
Trixies has a great backstory. Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook wrote the material in 1974, before Squeeze had really become Squeeze, shelved it because the music was too complicated for them to play properly at the time, then returned to it more than fifty years later. As an idea, that is irresistible. As an album, it is more mixed.
“What More Can I Say” is a good opener because the current band gives the song a sophistication the teenage version probably could not have had. There is an easy late-night quality to it, and the melody is strong enough that I do not need the concept to enjoy it. “You Get the Feeling” continues that atmosphere, softer and smoother, almost lounge-like in places. They are probably the two songs where the record sounds most naturally like mature Squeeze rather than old material being reconstructed.
“The Place We Call Mars” is more obviously a period piece. Bowie is everywhere in the vocal phrasing and guitar language, which is entertaining but also tells me how young the writing was. “Hell on Earth” has the same problem in a different direction, with a strong Sparks influence in the keyboards and theatrical delivery. Neither is bad, but I hear influences before I hear a fully formed identity.
“The Dancer,” “Good Riddance” and “Don’t Go Out in the Dark” settle into the concept-album logic more heavily. They feel like scenes inside the nightclub rather than songs that demand repeated listening on their own. That is probably where the score starts falling. I understand what each piece is doing narratively, but understanding its role is not the same thing as remembering the melody afterwards.
“Why Don’t You” has more personality because the hard-rock and theatrical elements give it some bite. The Guardian hears a possible Sensational Alex Harvey Band connection, which makes sense. It breaks up the smoother material nicely, although again the style is more memorable than the song itself.
“Anything But Me” and “It’s Over” are competent but not especially distinctive. By this point I start noticing that the album is remarkably consistent in length, almost every track hovering around three minutes, which keeps the record concise but also makes the sequence feel slightly schematic. The concept changes character, but the musical scale rarely changes much.
“The Jaguars” is another good example of how the album works better as theatre than as pure pop. There is colour, character and enough detail to visualise the scene, but not necessarily a chorus or melodic turn I want to come back to repeatedly.
The two “Trixies” pieces give the record an appropriate closing frame. “Pt. 1” is 2:49 and “Pt. 2” 3:50, and together they give the album more shape than a random collection of rescued demos would have had. I like the idea of the club itself finally becoming the subject, but even here the concept carries part of the emotional weight.
What ultimately limits Trixies is that it sounds like exactly what it is: teenage ambition revisited by much better musicians. The adult Squeeze can arrange and perform these songs beautifully, but they cannot retroactively give every one of them the songwriting depth Difford and Tilbrook developed later. That contrast is fascinating, but it is also why I would not rate the album particularly high.
A charming and very well-executed reconstruction of Squeeze before they fully became Squeeze. The concept is stronger than several of the individual songs, and the mature performances cannot completely hide the teenage writing underneath. Interesting, occasionally very good, but more archival curiosity than essential late-period statement.
Genre: Pop Rock
Country: UK
Final Verdict: 64% (Good Album)
Yearly Ranking: 339th / 713
Highlight: You Get the Feeling
Made me think of:
David Bowie
Sparks
10cc
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