Following a triumphant two-month tour of North America and ahead of the biggest UK headline tour of their career this November, Squeeze release ‘The Place We Call Mars’, the latest track to be taken from their critically acclaimed album Trixies.
The release comes as Squeeze return from a major 27-date run across North America which took the band to some of the continent’s most celebrated venues, including New York’s Radio City Music Hall and a landmark performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
One of the darker corners of the world of Trixies, ‘The Place We Call Mars’ is a vivid crime-scene vignette, another example of the extraordinary storytelling instincts that Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook were already developing when they first wrote the songs for the album as teenagers.
It is a song whose journey stretches back more than half a century. Trixies was conceived in 1974, when Difford was 19 and Tilbrook just 16, at the very beginning of one of British music’s most enduring songwriting partnerships. Set in and around a fictional nightclub, its cast of characters and interlocking stories were imagined years before Squeeze would make their first record.
At the time, the pair had the songs and the ambition but not yet the musical experience to realise what they could hear in their heads. As Difford explained: “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.”
More than 50 years later, after pulling out the old cassette, Squeeze finally returned to those songs. Produced by Squeeze bassist Owen Biddle (The Roots, John Legend, Al Green), Trixies became both the band’s first studio album in eight years and, remarkably, the first album they ever wrote.
The result has been greeted with widespread acclaim.
MOJO ★★★★★ declared that “Trixies sits comfortably beside Squeeze’s finest works of the late ’70s. It might even be better”, while Classic Pop ★★★★ called it simply “MAGNIFICENT” and Record Collector ★★★★ hailed it as “one of the albums of 2026”.
Classic Rock described Trixies as “A record imagined in youth, realised in maturity and vibrating with the thrill of possibility”, PopMatters called it “Imaginative, impressive and, most importantly, fun”, while The Wire hailed “A surprising and impressive release”.
The Guardian, meanwhile, observed that the record demonstrates how “all the Squeeze hallmarks of melody, romance and storytelling were there from the beginning.”
The release of ‘The Place We Call Mars’ now brings Squeeze back home for another milestone.
Beginning at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on November 12, the Tried, Tested and Trixies Tour is the most ambitious UK headline tour of the band’s 50+ year career. The run includes several arena headline shows and a hometown landmark at London’s O2 Arena, just three miles from where Squeeze began. Joining the band as Very Special Guest throughout the tour will be Billy Bragg.
The shows will bring together music from Trixies with a catalogue that includes some of British pop’s most enduring songs: ‘Up The Junction’, ‘Tempted’, ‘Cool For Cats’, ‘Another Nail In My Heart’ and ‘Labelled With Love’.
The UK tour will also support grassroots music and food poverty charities, with £1 from every ticket sold donated to help grassroots venues, artists and promoters, alongside support for Trussell and its network of food banks across the UK. The initiative continues Squeeze’s commitment to using their live shows to support communities and the independent music ecosystem.
More than 50 years after Difford and Tilbrook first imagined the characters inhabiting Trixies, those songs are no longer teenage ideas waiting on a cassette to be realised. With a celebrated new album, a major North American tour behind them and the biggest UK headline shows of their career immediately ahead, ‘The Place We Call Mars’ finds Squeeze bringing one of their earliest songs firmly into the present.
TRIED, TESTED AND TRIXIES TOUR 2026
Thursday 12 November – Glasgow – OVO Hydro
Friday 13 November – Blackpool – Opera House
Saturday 14 November – Nottingham – Motorpoint Arena
Monday 16 November – Newcastle – O2 City Hall
Tuesday 17 November – Stockton – Globe
Thursday 19 November – Hull – Connexin Live
Friday 20 November – Leeds – First Direct Bank Arena
Saturday 21 November – Liverpool – M&S Bank Arena
Monday 23 November – Manchester – O2 Apollo
Thursday 26 November – London – The O2
Friday 27 November – Cardiff – Utilita Arena
Saturday 28 November – Birmingham – Utilita Arena
Monday 30 November – Swansea – Building Society Arena
Tuesday 1 December – Plymouth – Pavilions
Friday 4 December – Bournemouth – International Centre
Saturday 5 December – Brighton – Centre
Trixies is out now via BMG.
See squeezeofficial.com for more information
