Demi Lovato's first two albums, 2008's Don't Forget and 2009's Here We Go Again, came out 10 months apart and were both pretty great little slices of slick guitar pop, and I thought she was well on track to a career path along the lines of Kelly Clarkson or Pink, but perhaps more interesting by virtue of her love of metal. But like most other Disney-bred starlets, Loevato had to go through growing pains sooner or later, and that happened last year when she had a whole public meltdown that involved punching a backup dancer and going into inpatient treatment for cutting and an eating disorder.

It seemed like Lovato owned up to and dealt with her personal problems pretty well, so in a way I felt like it was more of a bad omen for her music that she started talking about her third album taking more of a clubby R&B direction. When the lead single finally arrived, "Skyscraper" swung in an opposite but not necessarily preferable direction with a histrionic power ballad that may have been trying to wring her personal problems into big cathartic pop moment but mostly just stumbles on that stupid chorus lyric. So I wssn't really sure what to expect with Unbroken, but either was I wasn't expecting much.

As it turns out, the album is pretty committed to the club vibe, and "Skyscraper" is an outlier (along with "Fix A Heart," which is a far better wounded ballad). The album opens with the first Timbaland/Missy Elliott collaboration we've heard in years, and it's both underwhelming and just not a good fit for Lovato's voice. In fact in general she has a voice that suits pop/rock well but comes off a bit thin and brittle over R&B tracks, which kind of dooms the whole album to sound like a doomed mistake. Some songs, especially the title track and "Hold Up," combine some cool production textures with a tune that's in Lovato's wheelhouse, but those moments are few and far between.

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