Album: Robert Palmer, ****

Drive, Universal

Few pop singers, these days, are quite as unhip as Robert Palmer. The suits, the style, the general air of smarmy ladykiller smugness – all militate, for many, against sympathetic consideration of his efforts. Indeed, so inextricably linked has the former Wakefield soulboy become with the discredited era of Eighties excess that he's unlikely ever to force his way back into mainstream public approval, whatever his efforts.

Kudos to him, then, for Drive, which sounds as though Palmer, acknowledging his own chart unfriendliness, has been liberated by it to ignore such commercial considerations and just make the kind of album he'd like to listen to himself. Not that he's exactly held back in this regard in the past: his 1994 offering Honey, for instance, was a bizarre collection of songs whose wildly diverse approaches took in African, Caribbean, and Latin American modes alongside house, heavy metal and rockabilly. It all but killed off his deal with EMI, who were doubtless hoping for another MTV-friendly anthem in the vein of "Addicted To Love".

Drive is less eclectic, but lots more fun. Inspired by his contribution to the 2001 tribute album Hellhound On My Trail: The Songs Of Robert Johnson, this is Palmer's full-blown blues album, which he describes as "the first record I've made which I play for my own pleasure". Although admittedly, Palmer's definition of the blues is somewhat elastic, incorporating the swamp-funk of "Crazy Cajun Cake Walk" and even the soca flavour of "Stella", in which steel pans accompany the hapless protagonist's wry accession to the eponymous Stella's advances.

The old masters are well represented: JB Lenoir's "Mama Talk to Your Daughter" opens proceedings with a taut, buzzing boogie riff and bracing bluesharp break, while Willie Dixon's "29 Ways" – embellished with a piano quote from the jazz standard "Caravan" – features Palmer's multi-tracked tenor and baritone backing harmonies as well as his lead vocal. His "Hound Dog" owes rather more to Big Mama Thornton than Elvis, while his "Need Your Love So Bad" is surely the best version of Little Willie John's heartbreaker since Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac chose it as their second single.

It's not all old material, though: twangy Jew's harp brings added bounce to the duetting acoustic guitars on Keb' Mo's "Am I Wrong?", while "Dr Zhivago's Train", by Nicolai Dunger, features full, warm 12-string guitar and an enigmatic, time-signature that's as hard to pin down as a Lightnin' Hopkins groove. And Palmer brings conviction to the droll lyric of ZZ Top's "TV Dinners", as if it were a real blues plaint to equal the more usual hardships of heart and poverty.

The playing is exemplary throughout. It's Palmer's arrangements, however, that really make the project work, with "Why Get Up?" especially noteworthy for its blend of country-blues mandolin and National steel guitar with New Orleans-style piano and marching-band tuba.Drive is an inspired, enjoyable work from an artist at ease with himself: if you let yourself be swayed by past antipathies, you'll miss out on one of the year's more unexpected successes.