Toby Keith

In his 2005 hit “As Good as I Once Was,” aging country star Toby Keith meets a set of twin girls in a bar, and—after being propositioned for a three-way “rodeo”—rises to the occasion: “If you need some love tonight,” he sings, “Then I might have just enough / I ain’t as good as I once was / But I’m as good once as I ever was.”

But years aren’t always so easy to overcome, and the 47-year-old Keith’s 12th studio album, “That Don’t Make Me a Bad Guy,” bears all the signs of an artist aging out of what made him great. Gone for the most part are the brash, irreverent lyrics, bold build-ups, and devil-may-care hooks that characterized earlier hits like “Want to Talk About Me,” “Beer For My Horses,” and “How Do You Like Me Now.” Missing is the sense of reckless misadventure that had even a purportedly over-the-hill Keith brawling in bars and taking on two girls at once, ensuring listeners he hadn’t lost a step even when he said he had.

In place of the old, rough-edged attitude is a set of wistful regrets—mostly about relationships gone bad. Keith finds a striking number of ways to summon sorrows about women: in “Missing Me Some You,” it’s the pains of separation; in “She Never Cried In Front of Me,” it’s the discovery of missed signals (the title says it all); in “Cabo San Lucas,” it’s a desire for a former squeeze to keep his lonely self company in a Mexican resort town. “Tell me you love me,” Keith sings in one representative, self-flagellating cut; “It’ll hurt a lot worse when you go.”

The new heartbroken tinge is especially disappointing because the album is promising at the outset. The title track is more muted, Jimmy Buffet-style fare than full-tilt Keith, and the energy level is a little lower than usual. But there’s enough edge here—“Villain or an outlaw / I might kiss your girl or catch you with a southpaw / Ain’t dangerous, cantankerous / Maybe just looking for a real good time”—to keep us hoping that the artist is still up to his old tricks. And when Keith paws a “Creole woman” in the second track and then moves on to the best cut of the album, a high-energy, hook-heavy jaunt with a rebellious preacher’s daughter, it seems like that hope might not be in vain.

But the warning signs are already evident—she may be sitting on a motorcyle, but this girl’s got a Bible and a gentle touch, and Keith is receptive: “When my gypsy-life started taking its toll / And the fast lane got empty and out of control / Then just like an angel she saved my soul / From the devil.”

From there it’s all sentiment for the softer star: “Lost You Anyway” is a slow reflection on what might have been done differently to mend a broken love, and every one of the seven tracks from there on out is more of this mush, right down to the album’s last song, “I’ve Got It For You Girl”: “I’ve got it in a bad way / I want to kiss your sweet face / And lay like this forever.”

You can’t fault an artist for trying out new territory, and Keith’s vocals don’t falter. But for someone who made his name on the variety and quirk of his subjects and his money off the boot-in-your-ass, aggressive, sometimes jingoistic way he delivered, eight songs about affection and relationship troubles might not cut it. Keith should go back to his bread and butter if he’s going to prove that he’s as good as he once was.

—Reviewer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.