Adams attempts his best Springsteen gravitas on “Doomsday,” but where The Boss can spin a lady dizzy with mixed metaphors, Adams lazily pleads “My love… we can do better.” One could say the same, Ryan.

Over the years, Adams has taken quite a bit of shit about his tendency for simple, rhyming couplets. And he’s certainly not going to win over his naysayers on Prisoner. Take “Haunted House,” for example. Sung with overreaching earnestness that would make Bon Iver blush, Adams describes being the sole occupant of — you guessed it — a lonely house. This song is then followed by the Living Years-era Mike + the Mechanics melodrama of “Shiver and Shake.” Adams describes himself as “waiting here like a dog at the door”; the song is lifted with some lofty synths but ultimately never quite takes flight.

At this point in the album, Adams has reached redundant territory. “Why did you leave? And will you come back?” Dylan was wise enough to sometimes point the finger at himself. Adams seems devoid of that self-awareness, which causes one track to essentially bleed into the next. Break-up albums are best when the aggrieved finally looks inward. Adams is having a one-sided conversation (minus the hooks). Why was “To Be Without You” the lead single? No idea. Guess that’s where the dart landed. Broken Anyway” flies in the face of my theory that any song featuring hand claps is a hit.

Divorce aside (or notwithstanding), it’s been a rough couple of years for Adams. His pop experiment, the full on cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989 had more hot take flames around it than Civil War Atlanta. It was an interesting idea on paper, but the end results were just plain dull (one bright spot was last year’s Adams-produced La Sera album).

For all of his eclectic tastes (a typical interview will feature references to Black Flag, Jones Very and The Grateful Dead — sometimes in the same sentence), Adams belongs more to that style of troubadour that came alive in the 80s. You know the type: butt clenching jeans, perfectly messy hair, equally at home as a Soap Star. Unfortunately, Adams never seems to want to embrace his inner Michael Damian – remember how ticked Adams used to get when somebody accidentally referred to him as Bryan? The songs on Prisoner seem shackled to the chains of (unrequited) love. Here’s hoping that Adams eventually teams with a producer who convinces him to let loose (kind of like how he did with the aforementioned La Sera). And when he does, he’ll finally paint his masterpiece. Rock on!

Mike Postalakis (@mikepostalakis) is a writer, director and comedian living in Los Angeles. He doesn’t have a Netflix, Hulu, Amazon or HBO Go account. Instead, he spends his extra money at the Gap.