GARY KEMP: This Destination (East West). Verdict: Spandau founder branches out. Rating:. Gary Kemp received help from an unlikely source when he had writer's block while working on his third solo album. A phone call from former Pulp guitarist Richard Hawley prompted the Spandau Ballet founder to sit down at his piano and compose the intensely personal Work, one of the stand-out tracks on This Destination.

The Sheffield crooner's assistance isn't the only surprising thing about the new album. As Spandau's songwriter, Gary was a legend of New Romantic pop in the 1980s, but he's since launched an alternative career as singer and guitarist in Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets. The latter band, a touring outfit assembled by Pink Floyd drummer Mason, play some of Floyd's celebrated early songs, and it's those vintage influences that are the touchstones here.

As Kemp, 65, says: 'Touring with Nick Mason gave me a reputation as a guitarist and singer that I never got from Spandau.'. Tackling themes such as parenthood, the anxieties of middle age, and nostalgia for his North London adolescence, he's in candid singer-songwriter mode. Fans of dance tunes along the lines of Spandau Ballet's Gold should look away now. Gary Kemp received help from an unlikely source when he had writer's block while working on his third solo album, This Destination (East West).

Kemp, second from left, with his Spandau Ballet bandmates John Keeble, Tony Hadley, Martin Kemp and Steve Norman. Opening track Borrowed Town, written on a Tube ride to meet The Who's Pete Townshend, has the feel of a Paul Weller solo ballad. A song about the ever-changing nature of the capital city, it features a very Floyd-like guitar solo from Kemp. His fondness for a catchy pop melody hasn't left him entirely, though. Dancing In Bed is a lovely song about two aspiring songwriters.

At The Chateau satirises the high-end art world, while Windswept Street (1978) salutes Covent Garden's Blitz nightclub, where the New Romantic movement began. At the other extreme, a more introspective streak surfaces. 'Is there anybody out there who can take the wheel?' he asks on Take The Wheel, a ballad with orchestral backing by U2's string arranger John Metcalfe. 'My feet are dragging, my arms feel weight,' he laments on Put Your Head Up, before resolving to maintain a positive mental attitude.

But the most moving song is Work, the ballad he was encouraged to finish by Hawley. Kemp admits he never fully mourned his parents, Frank and Eileen, who both died in 2009, and the track is a vivid account of their working lives, his dad's as a printer, his mum's as a dinner lady. 'Got to make it work,' he sings, putting an emotional seal on an album that casts him in a revealing new light. Circa Waves: Death & Love Pt. 1 (Lower Third).

Verdict: Soul to banish the blues. When it comes to banishing the winter blues, rising Scottish soul diva Brooke Combe has plenty going for her. The singer from Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, writes songs about love gone wrong, but sings them with such a sunny disposition that the results are exhilarating. She first attracted attention in 2020 when her lockdown cover of Baccara's disco classic Yes Sir, I Can Boogie became a viral hit thanks to the song's popularity with Scottish football fans.

A major record deal – and mini-album Black Is The New Gold – followed in 2023, but that proved to be a false start, and she returned to the drawing board. Now signed to independent label Modern Sky, she's back with a sun-kissed album, Dancing At The Edge Of The World, that makes the most of her smoky voice. Combe, 25, was introduced to the music of Diana Ross and Whitney Houston by her mum, and she channels the U.S. soul greats.

Brook Combe is back with a sun-kissed album, Dancing At The Edge Of The World, that makes the most of her smoky voice. In the wake of a break-up, it would have been easy for her to deliver an album of ballads, but she keeps the tempos lively. Opening track This Town recalls her teenage years in Dalkeith. 'Gotta get out of this town,' she sings. But affairs of the heart are her main concern. On Guilt, she admits to being addicted to a relationship that's bad for her, while The Last Time finds her craving a final embrace before two lovers go their separate ways.

It's not all anguish. Lanewood Pines celebrates a night out with a new partner, and the title track is full of hope. If anyone can bring soul back into the pop mainstream, it's surely the diva from Dalkeith. Both albums are out now. Brooke Combe starts a UK tour on April 3 at Liverpool Arts Club (ticketmaster.co.uk). Arms's Length by Sam Fender. The Geordie Springsteen adopts a classic soft-rock approach on the strongest taster yet for his forthcoming third album.