ALTHOUGH Glenn Tilbrook will always be associated with Squeeze and Chris Difford, this is his fifth solo album.

A new Squeeze album is due later this year and Happy Endings filled a writing lull when Tilbrook found things had gone “a bit quiet” at the Difford end: so he wrote this enjoyable solo outing – one which he says pleases him as much as such Squeeze classic albums as Argybargy and Cool For Cats.

A big claim, but happily sustained by the evidence. What is so rewarding about Tilbrook is that he remains excited by what he does, and adventurous too, calling on full string arrangements, kazoos, sitars and Indian harmonium, ukuleles and bongos. Opener Ray is a lovely Squeeze-style sketch in poignancy, while Persephone is an orchestral story-song, and Rupert is a sharpl ditty about Mr Murdoch, a tune far prettier than the subject deserves. And the great songs roll on: Everybody Sometimes, Fruitcake and Peter. Tilbrook may have been at this game a long while, but he hasn’t lost his sense of wonder.