Squeeze
Album: Cradle To The Grave
Label: Virgin EMI
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.squeezeofficial.com

As heartening as it is to have Squeeze back and in such chipper mood I can't have been the only one wondering what had happened to the songwriting chops of Messrs Difford and Tilbrook. The band was reactivated in 2007 and since than all we've had was 2010's Spot the Difference, an album of new versions of old songs and a single EP of new material.

But I needn't have worried; sometimes things take a bit of time - we're none of us getting any younger after all.

It seems an apt observation since this album accompanies the wholly enjoyable pain-free nostalgia of recent TV sitcom Cradle To Grave, co-written by Jeff Pope and Danny Baker from the latter's rollicking first volume of memoirs, Going to Sea in a Sieve. As nostalgia goes it's all warmth and little chill - even death is embraced with a twinkle in the eye, the kind of melancholia that makes life worth living.

Which of course is what the best Squeeze songs have always had about them. Baker's one-time school mate Chris Difford providing the rasping vocal and lyrical counterpoint to Tilbrook's higher register and intricate happy-sad wordplay. It's heard to great effect in the album's title track, which has wormed its way between my ears these past few weeks. Further evidence of its power can be found on the creaking dancefloor-razer Nirvana in which a middle-aged couple rue the flight of their brood, but for the most part this is pretty breezy stuff. Top of the Form revels in being ahead of the pack but down with the lads, while the excellent Sunny is just that - bright and luminous.

With Chris and Glenn firing on all cylinders and finally happy to be so, there's also space to enjoy the generous and responsive playing going on around then, with long-time Squeeze bassist John Bentley back in the fold, aided and abetted by Lucy Shaw and the sympathetic drumming of Simon Hanson. On keyboards groove-master Stephen Large is on punchy form and with the telling contributions of Nine Below Zero duo Dennis Greaves and Mark Feltham and Melvin Duffy's pedal steel (yes, really!), this is a right old knees up all round. 'Andsome.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk