Now it’s Spandau ballads! Old Romantic Gary Kemp springs surprises with a stirring set of heartfelt new songs, writes ADRIAN THRILLS

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…


Now it’s Spandau ballads! Old Romantic Gary Kemp springs surprises with a stirring set of heartfelt new songs, writes ADRIAN THRILLS

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.

Now it’s Spandau ballads! Old Romantic Gary Kemp springs surprises with a stirring set of heartfelt new songs, writes ADRIAN THRILLS

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

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. 

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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.

Best of the new releases

Circa Waves: Death & Love Pt. 1 (Lower Third)

Verdict: Soul to banish the blues. 

Rating:

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

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)

Track of the week

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. 

The song’s infectious chorus should go down a storm at his stadium shows in London and Newcastle in June.

Best of the new releases

Circa Waves: Death & Love Pt. 1 (Lower Third)

Rating:

Written after singer Kieran Shudall needed life-saving surgery to remedy a blocked artery in 2023, the Liverpool quartet’s sixth album is infused with the joys of bouncing back from potential tragedy. 

Album highlight Blue Damselfly deals with Shudall’s fears of leaving his wife and son too early. 

Everything Changed is equally cathartic. Circa Waves sometimes wear their influences too readily – the festival-ready bombast of The Killers on We Made It; the indie-rock of The Strokes on Like You Did Before – but there’s no doubting their spirit.

Kieran Shudall's album highlight Blue Damselfly deals with his fears of leaving his wife and son too early

Kieran Shudall’s album highlight Blue Damselfly deals with his fears of leaving his wife and son too early

Eddie Chacon: Lay Low (Stones Throw)

Rating:

Having topped the UK charts as a member of R&B duo Charles & Eddie in 1992, Californian singer Eddie Chacon is now busily establishing himself as a solo artist. 

Dominated by low-key, woozy jams and psychedelic soul ballads that hark back to Marvin Gaye in the 1970s, his third solo album in five years is a world away from the pop-R&B of 1992’s Would I Lie To You?

Good Sun mourns the death of his mother, Patricia. Let The Devil In laments the pace of modern living (‘I can’t keep up’), pairing his strong, soulful voice with a flair for storytelling.

Eddie Chacon's album is dominated by low-key, woozy jams and psychedelic soul ballads that hark back to Marvin Gaye in the 1970s

Eddie Chacon’s album is dominated by low-key, woozy jams and psychedelic soul ballads that hark back to Marvin Gaye in the 1970s


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