Squeeze Have Busy 2026 With ‘First’ Album, ‘Trixies,’ and Tour

Share This:

Chris Difford and Glenn Tillbrook of Squeeze in 2025 (Photo by Dean Chalkley; used with permission)

When it comes to storytelling, very few pop groups have done it as well as Squeeze. But even the group’s songwriting mainstays Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook would be hard pushed to devise a plot twist like the one that has resulted in 2026’s Trixies, their first album in eight years but the first they ever wrote.

Before such Squeeze classics as “Goodbye Girl,” “Up the Junction,” “Tempted,” “Another Nail in My Heart” and “Labelled With Love,” before the 2008 Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, the world tours and festival highlight sets, there was Trixies.

From the Nov. 13, 2025, album announcement: Written by the teenage Difford (19) and Tilbrook (16) at the very start of their songwriting partnership, when concept albums and rock operas were de rigueur and with the snappy underworld vernacular of New York fabulist Damon Runyon filling Difford’s thoughts, the songs are a collection of stories set in a fictional night club, 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.

“At that time, we couldn’t get signed, we couldn’t get gigs,” says Tilbrook during a live TV interview on BBC Breakfast. “From the moment we met, we wrote non-stop. By the time we got signed… a few years later… we carried on writing and forgot about those songs.”

Trixies will be released on March 6, 2026 via BMG. It’s available for pre-order in the U.S./worldwide here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here and here.

They’ve also announced a 2026 tour, “Tried, Tested and Trixies: 53 Years of Classic Songwriting,” with Billy Bragg opening for their U.K. dates. Tickets are available here and here. (See dates below.)

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 concerts 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 – 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 at the beginning of 2025 – is finished and set to follow in the future. “The act of revisiting the Trixies songs had me in tears,” says 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.” Adds 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.”

“There’s a weird sort of maturity in these songs that we didn’t reach again for quite a few years,” says Tilbrook. “Almost every song [on Trixies] I can point to a direct influence that’s happened, whether it’s Paul McCartney or Sparks or something.

The first taste of the record comes in the form of “Trixies (Part One),” a sub-3 minute introduction to Trixies, the rhythm of the club and the colorful assortment of characters within.

Squeeze Trixies Track Listing
What More Can I Say
You Get The Feeling
The Place We Call Mars
Hell On Earth
The Dancer
Good Riddance
Don’t Go Out In the Dark
Why Don’t You
Anything But Me
It’s Over
The Jaguars
Trixies (Part One)
Trixies (Part Two)

Squeeze 2026 Tour (Tickets are available here and here)
Mar 20 – Hamburg, Germany – Fabrik
Mar 22 – Stockholm, Sweden – Debaser Stand
Mar 24 – Haarlem, Netherlands – Patronaat
Mar 25 – Cologne, Germany – Luxor
Mar 27 – Milan, Italy – Santeria Toscana 31
Mar 28 – Paris, France – Cafe de la Danse

U.K. Dates
Nov 12 – Glasgow – OVO Hydro
Nov 13 – Blackpool – Opera House
Nov 14 – Nottingham – Motorpoint Arena
Nov 16 – Newcastle – O2 City Hall
Nov 17 – Stockton – Globe
Nov 19 – Hull – Connexin Live
Nov 20 – Leeds – First Direct Bank Arena
Nov 21 – Liverpool – M&S Bank Arena
Nov 23 – Manchester – O2 Apollo
Nov 26 – London – The O2
Nov 27 – Cardiff – Utilita Arena
Nov 28 – Birmingham – Utilita Arena
Nov 30 – Swansea – Building Society Arena
Dec 01 – Plymouth – Pavilions
Dec 04 – Bournemouth – Int. Centre
Dec 05 – Brighton – Brighton Centre