Almost In Your Arms sees Martin reuniting with the all-Swedish trio featured on her superb 2019 album, Believin’ It, augmented here by a number of exceptional guests. Written by the trio of Dorothy Fields, George Oppenheimer and Jimmy McHugh for the 1935 film Every Night At Eight, the album gets off to an explosive start with the energising blast of ‘I Feel A Song Coming On’, which sees Locke peeling off a dazzling solo. Charlie Wood joins Martin for a sublime cover of Tom Waits’ ‘This One’s From The Heart’, while Martin’s spectacularly deep pocket is heard to great effect on the title track, an arrangement featuring the piano trio only which is definitely more Nancy Wilson than Sophia Loren.

The delicious McMillan-Martin co-write ‘Apparently, I’m Fine’ sounds as if it could have been excerpted from a lost neo-noir directed by Roman Polanski.

Other highlights include a joyous take on Carole King’s ‘Bitter With the Sweet’, a fine brace of Mark Winkler songs – the uber atmospheric ‘Train In the Desert’ in which Locke doubles as narrator and soloist, and the pleasingly bittersweet ‘Do You Ever Wonder?’ – plus one of the most extraordinarily beautiful covers you’ll hear this or any other year, the Bacharach/Costello masterpiece ‘This House Is Empty Now’. Elsewhere, Martin’s incredibly rich timbre lights up the exquisite jazz waltz ‘September Song’, co-written by McMillan and the noted lyricist, Don Black. Produced, recorded and mixed by McMillan, who also contributes trumpet, flugel, keys and programming, the incredible clarity and spaciousness of the recorded sound captures Martin’s vocals to perfection.