Dead smack in the middle for a rating here on this at times very pleasant, but mostly nondescript album . The shame here is that Ms. Edwards voice definitely is hit-worthy as well as being a nifty instrument artistically. It has enough Trisha Y./ Patti L. twang to be country and enough Pop lilt to soar in today's country landscape. But most of the material here is blase at best. But to her credit a lot of these songs that do end up being passable, would be absolute dreck sung by someone without such an amazing set of pipes.

" Any Given Moment", " Ready to Fall" , and "A Rose is a Rose" all have verses that have a boring, paint-by-numbers sensibility but are all saved from being total washouts by very attractive choruses. " A beautiful Mess" .. well IS. ( a mess)..it is . country-meets Britney Spears-meets Ms. Edwards trenchant, beautiful voice and the result is crap....Ms. Edwards is far too mature to be singing immature silliness like this.

But the disc does hold 2 treasures : " Slow Learned" is a well put-together kicky hoot and the soaring " This is the Heartache" could indeed land this lady on the hit map.

But too much of the time this whole album .. while not offending.. doesn't have anything special enough to make you get into listening to it. The jolting pop productions of the cuts produced by Richard Marx juxtaposed with the songs produced by Country producing legend Keith Stegall doesn't help out trying to find anything to aurally grab onto either.

What this girl needs to " Reach" for next time is a whole lot better songs, one specific production train of thought and someone who cares more about showcasing Ms. Edwards amazing singing chops instead of trying to throw darts all over the map to make her sellable. " Reach" misses. Her voice definitely doesn't.