Smaller scale than your average Squeeze single, though no less charming, Glenn Tilbrook’s “Everybody Sometimes” doesn’t try to do too much — doesn’t try, I suppose, to draw comparisons with his long-held relationship with Chris Difford.
Still, there’s no denying that voice, that way with a hook, and as “Everybody Sometimes” moves into its middle eight, there’s more than enough of both to capture the imagination of any Squeeze fan — even as Tilbrook stakes out his own less ambitious but still effortlessly captivating place in the musical firmament.
“Everybody Sometimes” arrive in advance of Tilbrook’s solo effort Happy Ending, due on June 6, 2014, via Anchor and Hope Music. This is, if you’ve been too busy rearranging 1980s-era playlist favorites like “Tempted,” “Hourglass,” “Black Coffee in Bed” and “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell),” actually Tilbrook’s fifth album separate from his chums in Squeeze.
Elsewhere, Tilbrook continues his solo collaboration with Chris Braide (who’s recently worked with Geoff Downes, among others) on tracks that cover a sweep from “Rupert” (somehow, it’s about the media magnate Murdoch) over to “Dennis” (about, and this is more like it, the Beach Boys’ Wilson brother). All of it is presented in this same stripped-down manner, the result of a quiet period in Squeeze that sent Tilbrook back to the basics.
Simon Hanson, Squeeze’s drummer, appears on Happy Ending, as does Lucy Shaw, Chris McNally, Dennis Greaves and — in another sign of how off-handed and homey these sessions were — two of Tilbrook’s kids.
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