Nine Lives

Starting with foot-stomps, hand claps and a loop-like acoustic guitar riff, Winwood puts his best foot forward – and it's cracking stuff. It’s heading down the same trance-blues road as Model T Ford or RL Burnside and I want MORE. But then it goes into coffee-table soul for the next track and I find myself having a conversation about property prices with a man who works for Accenture. The problem with some of these old codgers is that they’ve lost the capacity to tell the difference between genre-bending and genre-wanking. Apart from that great opening track, there are too-many “tasteful” fills and extravagant but pointless instrumental solos. In fact, a lot of this album screams “session musician”. Actually it doesn’t scream it. It sidles up besides you, puts its hand on your knee and whispers it into your ear like a sleazy uncle at a wedding. Sorry Steve, but more of Track 1 please.
Key track: ‘I’m not Drowning’