He's been interpreting the works of others since his time in The Faces, but the days of Rod Stewart as a singer-songwriter seem all but over. His last self-penned number was the title track of 1998's When We Were the New Boys and, more strikingly, his last LP to feature newly-written material from anyone was 2001's poorly-received Human. The following year, Stewart hit multi-platinum with It Had to Be You: the Great American Songbook and he's since played it safe with three follow-up albums of US standards, topped off with a fifth consecutive covers LP comprising rock classics.

After a three-year break, Stewart is now returning with a sixth set of standards - Soulbook. "This is the album I have waited my whole life to record," he states in the liner notes. While it would be churlish to doubt the impact that this music has made on his career, it does make you wonder what on earth was stopping him for the last 40 years. The album takes in 13 soul hits (plus a bonus two for us in the UK), pretty much all of which are full-on classics from the golden age of the genre. If you can imagine Stewart's inimitable voice over smooth-as-silk productions of 'What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted', 'Wonderful World' and 'If You Don't Know Me By Now', you'll have a pretty much spot-on idea of what Soulbook is about.

The appeal of Stewart's voice hasn't diminished one jot over the years. That unique tonsils-full-of-gravel growl is as fine as ever, but despite standout readings of 'It's The Same Old Song' and 'Rainy Night In Georgia', you can't help feeling there's something very empty at the centre of Soulbook. The conservative track selection is understandable - it's billed as "the greatest soul songs of our time", after all - but what's disappointing is how slavishly the arrangements of the originals have been copied. When Johnny Cash teamed up with Rick Rubin for the American series, risks were taken. Some of them didn't pay off, but the resulting recordings betrayed a sense of artistic endeavour that's lacking throughout Soulbook.

The guest spots (Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Mary J. Blige and a warbling Jennifer Hudson) add little, but the album is admittedly never less than listenable. You'd need to do something horrific to songs as iconic as 'Tracks Of My Tears', 'Your Love Keeps Lifting Me (Higher And Higher)' and 'Love Train' for them to be anything otherwise. However, despite Stewart's talent and best intentions, there's an unmistakable sense that for the people behind the album, Soulbook is little more than product - a record that's a happy medium between a vanity karaoke project and a record label banker.