Formed in 1975 in London, England, by Chris Difford (guitar, vocals, lyrics) and Glenn Tilbrook (vocals, guitar, music), Squeeze is one of the pioneering and relatively most enduring and prolific bands associated with classic New Wave music. In its long, albeit sporadic, career, Squeeze has released fifteen full-length albums, from 1978’s self-titled to this year’s Cradle to the Grave. Singles that have catapulted the band to commercial popularity, or that have long become fan-favorites, included “Bang Bang,” “Take Me, I’m Yours,” “Cool for Cats,” “Up in the Junction,” “Tempted,” “Labelled with Love,” “Black Coffee in Bed,” “Another Nail in My Heart,” “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell),” “Hourglass,” “853-5937,” “Satisfied,” “Cry in Your Sleep,” “Third Rail,” “This Summer,” “Electric Trains,” and “Heaven Knows.” Significantly, former members of the band who have eventually carved out for themselves equally fruitful, if not more successful, respective solo careers included Jools Holland (keyboards) and Paul Carrack (vocals/keyboard). Other notable members or sessionists included Andy Metcalfe (of The Soft Boys, The Egyptians), Kevin Wilkinson (The Waterboys, China Crisis), Bruce Hornsby, and Aimee Mann (‘Til Tuesday). Squeeze may have already savored its most wonderful moments during its productive heyday in the 1980s, producing seven albums for that decade; but it has not been out of touch either in the ’90s, when the band was able to squeeze out its creative juices with four albums more. The 2000s, however, was uneventful; and then, soldiering on, Squeeze somehow got to unleash, in 2010, an album of re-recorded old materials, but that was it. Finally, Tilbrook and Clifford, with new band members Simon Hanson (drums), Stephen Large (keyboards), and Lucy Shaw (bass), got their act together, and, in 2015, came up with Cradle to the Grave, the fifteenth album under Squeeze’s name.
Released on October 2, 2015, Cradle to the Grave is Squeeze’s first album of new materials since 1998. It opens with the Beatlesque/Wings-glazed piano-led title track. Following next is “Nirvana,” whose short introductory piano cascade that alludes to The Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays” will effectively get the attention of any New Wave music enthusiast and might cause him to sing “the silicon chips” on a false start. “Beautiful Game” then enters with a big drum sound, akin to the backbeat of Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “All I Want” and Rialto’s “Monday Morning 4:19,” only to return to the album’s general classic Pop Rock sound. A similar vibe continues with the more upbeat and sunnier Country-tinged “Happy Days,” whose near-end instrumental interlude might remind the initiated listener of Split Enz’s “Six Months on a Leaky Boat.”
Squeeze then turns sentimental with the Gospel-adorned midtempo ballad “Open.” The mood becomes bluesy with the folky Bob Dylan-ish track “Only 15,” which exudes also a wee bit whiff of Eagles’ “Hotel California.” The track that follows, “Top of the Form,” starts like an extension of it; but then it immediately transforms into a Rockabilly/Psychobilly/Gospel combo. It will not be out of place on a playlist that includes any upbeat Stray Cats song (“[She’s] Sexy + 17,” for instance), The Polecats’ “Make a Circuit with Me,” The Cramps’ “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns,” and Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio.”
The majestically orchestrated “Sunny,” which namechecks Jimi Hendrix, is a mellifluous trek to late-’60s Baroque Pop. One may hear influences of David Bowie’s debut album, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and The Left Banke’s Walk Away Renée/Pretty Ballerina, all of which, interestingly, were released in the same year, 1967. “Haywire” is a star-crossed ballad rendered in a beautiful Waltz rhythm. Then, the quirky and jangly synth-drenched stomper “Honeytrap” sounds like an attempt by Squeeze to prove that its music could still be placed alongside those of many contemporary Indie Pop bands without noticing the age of its progenitor; fairly, it succeeded flawlessly. Near the end of the album is the shimmery acoustic-oriented ballad “Everything,” which shares the romantic lyricism and musicality of Liverpool Express’s “You Are My Love.” Finally, Cradle to Grave closes with the dramatic and loungy Soul/R&B tendencies of “Snap, Crackle, and Pop”- another future classic that has the capability to situate itself among the older classics associated with those genres, such as The Commodores’ “Sail On” and The Guess Who’s “These Eyes.”
Cradle to the Grave proves that the creative juices of Squeeze have not really dried up after all. Every song that it contains is well-crafted and rightly textured, worthy of being placed side by side with any of the veteran band’s classics. As a whole, the album is rousing for its diversity of styles, making each song stand out on its own and assume a distinct sonic identity. In the realms of songwriting and music-making, age does not really matter – so long as passion, talent, skills, confidence, and perseverance remain a part of the whole equation. Squeeze definitely still has all these important characteristics despite its forty years of existence in the music scene. CrypticRock gives Cradle to the Grave 4 out of 5 stars.
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