It's tough to be cynical about Bryan Adams's outlook these days. In his familiar rasp, on his newest record 11, the craggy-faced, London-based Canuck tells us: "The heart is like an open hand, holding out and healing. "Then swelling strings. And someone somewhere in mom jeans is feeling frisky. Sorry. For those of us who were introduced to his work via Martha Quinn and MTV nearly a quarter century ago, and a bit bummed when early rockers like "Cuts Like a Knife" gave way to mush like "Heaven" and his 1991-smash "Everything I Do," 11 and its sentiments assure us that the man remains frozen in soundtrack-love-song-mode. And no one nearby seems to be waving around even a warm hair dryer.

As we learn from Adams's lyrics on 11, the women he encounters have got a way. And a smile. And this turns him inside out. He can feel it in his bones. And he knows it in his heart. In addition, Adams's women move in mysterious ways, and it's a mystery how they know every part of him. If pressed, they can teach him to fly on broken wings, if he and other guys aren't drawn to them first like moths to a flame, or the women themselves don't fall to earth like angels with broken wings.

On "Walk on By," the most organic-sounding song on the record, which is hustled along with a simple little acoustic guitar loop, one of these women leaves a sleepy little town for the big city lights. By actually encouraging her to do so, Adams shows a maturity usually not displayed by the three or four thousand other male singer-songwriters -- like Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 -- who have generally tackled this same subject with the bitterness of a lover scorned. But by the time Adams looks outside of his bedroom and the near-claustrophobic cocoon offered by personal relationships, it's, well, a bonus track, and that's too bad. "The Way of the World," is the lone dispatch from Adams (who has done a lot for global charities over the years) that reveals a knowledge beyond crushes and heartache. On a side note, it would also be wrong to not give props to "Oxygen," which is propelled by some truly meaty drums.

In the end, 11's relative toothlessness is probably only disappointing to people who won't be listening to it anyway. But it is a slight bummer, knowing that Adams, who's shown creative hunger in other disciplines, doesn't display the same ambition in crafting his music. Over the last decade, he began shooting dramatic portraits, mostly, of extremely beautiful women (many of whom don't have wings, at least visibly), while also shepherding fallen angels to safety. Over the Christmas holiday, Amy Winehouse was invited by Adams to get her act together at his Caribbean villa ("Flower Grown Wild," one of 11's more rockin' songs, was even rumored to be about Winehouse, which, if it's true, is an odd portrayal -- one where she rides Greyhound buses and lives in the Hollywood Hills).

It's not like Adams hasn't been called a sap before. Though I doubt from the view in his mansion (one where another fallen angel, Lindsay Lohan, slipped after a shower and needed stitches in her shin) paid for largely, one imagines, by all those chart-topping chivalrous cinema ballads, those criticisms sting. Yet, even by 2002, Adams's motion-picture magic touch had diminished somewhat, with him writing songs for a film about an animated mustang.

At the end of the day, if he's a sentimental populist, fine. No one's suggesting a record with a lutenist a la Sting, or even getting symphonic like Elvis Costello, or Paul McCartney or even, good lord, Billy Joel, but some of us do remember a time when Adams, swinging his Rickenbacker in an empty swimming pool actually espoused the joys of breaking up. --JEFF JOHNSON

READ MORE:
Singer-songwriter Neko Case teams up with the New Pornographers
The Beastie Boys can't, won't, don't stop