O.C POP MUSIC REVIEW : Squeezing a Career Out of Neglect : Ignored by fame and fortune, the group that emerged from British, late-’70s punk/new wave perseveres with remarkable lyrics, melodies and harmony.

Seeing Squeeze perform at the Celebrity Theatre Sunday night, I was reminded of the Neville Brothers.

There aren’t exactly a lot of direct comparisons to be made between the two groups. One plays toughly angelic R & B steeped in a half-century of New Orleans tradition, with a lead singer whose body bears the result of years of dock-working and self-administered tattoos.

Squeeze, meanwhile, emerged in the British late-’70s punk/new wave scene playing music with more than a hint of ‘60s Merseybeat, with a wan lead singer who looks like Oscar Wilde does his hair.

The similarity, rather, lies in the way each band’s remarkable music is enough to carry them through the years.

While far lesser groups roll in riches and attention, both the Nevilles and Squeeze have had only teasing hints of the recognition and remuneration that are their due.

Nearly a decade ago Art Neville declared that if their next album didn’t “go to the bank” they’d have to disband. It didn’t, they didn’t, and, if anything, they reapplied themselves to their music with a devil-may-care ferocity.

Squeeze faced that hurdle in the early ‘80s and did indeed break up for a few years. Critics had praised songwriters Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook as the Lennon and McCartney of their day, or Gilbert and Sullivan even. The public, meanwhile, ignored them. But when they reunited for a charity gig in 1985, they had too much fun to stop, and started in all over again.

Since then Squeeze has recorded five remarkable albums, had one minor hit in 1987 with “Hourglass,” been through promising label changes that yielded nothing and kept soldiering along.

The group’s most recent, and typically brilliant, album, “Some Fantastic Place,” was released almost without notice three months ago.

Which brings us to the band’s show at the half-full Celebrity on a drizzly Sunday night: Just because the sun might be behind a cloud, that doesn’t mean it’s not shining.

Squeeze might similarly be kept from view by the criminally dull and listless radio that abounds in this country, but the band evidently doesn’t see that as a reason not to shine. The band’s rapturously received 24-song show was easily one of the year’s biggest delights.

There was no shortage of factors contributing to that. Difford’s lyrics are of that select group that show it’s possible to address adult issues and still rock, while Tilbrook’s melodies are fully deserving of the comparisons made to the Beatles’ writing, while standing on their own.

He also has a tremendous voice, part McCartney sweet and part Lennon growl, and is an inexhaustibly resourceful guitarist. Difford’s croaky, froggy-went-a-courtin’ voice blends curiously well with Tilbrook’s, making for one of the most distinctive harmony sounds in pop music.

Along with long-time bassist Keith Wilkinson, the group also now has singer-keyboardist Paul Carrack back in the fold. He had been a member in the early ‘80s, and his soulful, husky voice had put their “Tempted” on the charts. It also was Carrack singing on the 1975 Ace hit “How Long” and Mike + the Mechanics’ “The Living Years” in 1989.

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Powerhouse drummer Gilson Lavis has exited Squeeze, but fortunately they enlisted ex-Elvis Costello back-up Pete Thomas to take his place, making this the most musically potent version of the band yet.

Many of Squeeze’s best songs were missing from the set, but their absence was scarcely felt. As it was, there was scarcely a weak link in the chain of greatest almost-hits and songs from “Some Fantastic Place.”

Older standouts included a slow, funky version of “Goodbye Girl,” Carrack’s smoldering vocal on “Tempted” and Tilbrook’s irrepressibly effervescent shouting on “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Hourglass,” which briefly managed to segue into “Sunshine of Your Love.”

One new song, “Everything in the World,” told of a jilted guy waiting in an airport baggage-check area: “A lady cleans the floors / The night guard checks his watch / There’s two lonely faces / And one of them’s the clock.”

“Third Rail” proved a heartbreaker of a song, pondering love as that capricious third party in a relationship, that can absent itself despite the intentions of the couple.

The Carrack-sung “Loving You Tonight” took a brighter tack, citing love as the refuge from a chaotic world: “A flashing taillight speeds across the sky / My head’s cooking trouble as thoughts seem to fry / The last temptation was misunderstood / But loving you tonight feels good.”

It is Difford’s dissections of domestic life that carry the most weight, and the current “Jolly Comes Home” was no exception. That somber song of life with an uncommunicative lunk came during the second encore segment, both of which were otherwise unqualified delights.

Carrack led an incandescent version of his “How Long,” after which Tilbrook upped the ante with a rendition of “Can’t Buy Me Love” that had the same electric thrill as the Beatles’ live versions.

They took the show home with a percolating version of “Black Coffee in Bed,” which burst in all directions with a spirited sing-along from Tilbrook, foot-motivating gospel organ from Carrack and wild drum explosions from Thomas.

The audience was up, dancing and singing along for much of the set, and it was a diverse, if not numerous, bunch, ranging from 18-year-old KROQ-ers to folks in their 50s.

Cincinnati-based opening act Over the Rhine might amount to something in a couple of years, but in the meanwhile came off as too clever and self-conscious, as if they’d written their songs to impress their college professors. Singer Karin Berquist seemed out of her depths on the bluesy, semi-spoken “My Love Is a Fever” but showed promise on “Circle of Quiet,” a sort of Pretenders-meet-the-Maniacs number.