In his 40-year plus career, Steve Winwood's taste in music has swung from good old Dixeland jazz and blues to yukkie '80s commercial trash and progressive rock. So it comes as no real surprise that he's taken a little bit from each of those and distilled it into 'Nine Lives', his first album for about five years.

There certainly is a poles-apart variety of songs and, like most of his musical creations over the years, this nine-track collection will no doubt also get a mixed reception.

There's good stuff to be had, but the majority are hopelessly too long, with some stretching to seven minutes. That's when good listening turns into repetitive and boring and the track-hopping begins.

I thought I had struck gold with the opener 'I'm Not Drowning' but it continued for so long I thought it had got stuck. If he'd halved the time it would have been good listening.

But perhaps such self-indulgence is to be expected of a man who has nothing left to prove. An accomplished songwriter and musician, his band T-shirts include names such as Traffic, Go, Spencer Davis Group, and Blind Faith with Eric Clapton. Old Slowhand himself turns up here on the nicely laid-back blues number 'Dirty City' — but don't think that Winwood is upstaged. His skill on a variety of instruments is admirable and one has to respect the man for his organ work and guitar solos, particularly on 'We're All Looking'.

Winwood tends to drift in and out of the musical limelight, sometimes not recording for years, but each album shows a new dimension. 'Nine Lives' has its high moments and is clearly the work of a very talented man, but one has to be quite an addicted Winwood follower to become really excited about his latest outing.