Squeeze was a very craft-oriented band from day one, obviously indebted to the clever hooksmiths of The Beatles and The Kinks, but grounded in the twitchy New Wave that was on the rise at the end of the 1970s. Cool for Cats is the band’s second album, but the first where the songwriting team of Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook started to deliver songs as immaculately composed as that of their idols, as well as their immediate contemporaries like Elvis Costello, The Cars, Joe Jackson, and Nick Lowe. Tilbrook, who mainly wrote the melodies, shines brightest on the indelible chorus hook of “Goodbye Girl,” and on “Up the Junction,” a pop song with a topline so gorgeous and memorable that it’s easy to miss that the song doesn’t even have a chorus. “It’s So Dirty” and “Slighty Drunk” sound as though they were mainly written with New Wave-era dance floors in mind, while the seedy groove of opening track “Slap and Tickle” emulates the pulsing synthesizer style of Giorgio Moroder. Primary lyricist Difford gets his showcase on the title track, a disco-adjacent bopper that makes the most of his droll, Cockney-accented vocal affect.