Picture a giant cupboard that's always been locked. Now picture someone has picked the lock and swung open the doors wide, laying its entire contents bare. It's an apt analogy, as for the first time ever, Jaci Velasquez openly addresses the hardships she's faced in life -- most notably her parents' divorce and what it's like to grow up in the spotlight -- and she does so in her own words.

That's right, Jaci Velasquez can now add "songwriter" to resume. We always knew she was a gifted vocalist, but now she's ready to stop singing about things that other people want to express. Unspoken quite literally refers to all of the things she talks about on this album -- most of which she's never spoken about before.

Some of these lyrics are almost painful in their realism: she laments her past -- "Sometimes I'm saddened by the choices I've made / So many tears I have cried / Got what I wanted but the dream seemed to fade" (from "Where I Belong"); she opens up -- "I tremble at rejection / I'm scared to be alone / Sometimes I may be selfish / But I always make it home" ("The Real Me"); and she shows her own vulnerability -- "Feel like everybody's always watchin' / One little slip gets people talking / So many unkind words are spoken / You see my heart is hurting, but it's still open" ("Glass House"). There are songs that address other topics, like the general goodness of God, devotion to a friend, and more, but it's these songs where she opens up about herself that listeners are likely to find most compelling.

Musically, Velasquez employs a variety of producers to create an edgy pop sound, including Matthew Gerrard, Tommy Sims, Emilio Estefan, Jr., and more. Overall it's a much more upbeat sound than her usual work, embracing pop/rock rhythms on nearly every track. There are very few ballads here, which is a bit of a departure for her, but she sounds great letting go and getting her groove on for a change.

It must have been hard for someone on the verge of making her motion picture debut (in the film Chasing Papi) to resist the urge to do a full-on mainstream pop album. Instead, every single track on Unspoken points without reservation to her faith in God, and how unbelievably good He is, despite our own inadequacies and fears. That's the ultimate message at the heart of Unspoken: God is incredibly good to us, and we should never stop being thankful for that.