If you want to know what becomes of the brokenhearted, start here.

Nick Lachey, the former 98 Degrees hunk whose career was sadly overshadowed by his power-lunged wife, Jessica Simpson, has every reason to shed a few tears in his beer. MTV hindered his marriage before it ever had a chance, Simpson left him last fall and now the poor guy has been picking up his muscular pieces in front of any magazine reporter or TV camera that will listen.

We get it, bud. It stinks. You're a decent guy and you were wronged.

But does an entire album have to be dedicated to your woe-is-me-ness?

It's understandable that Lachey's head is a muddled mess, caught between anger ("how can we quit something we never even tried?" he wonders on "I Can't Hate You Anymore") and cautious optimism ("reaching out into unknown spaces with nothing left here to blur the view," goes "Outside Looking In"). But when each track begins with some variation of lost love, hurting hearts and strained forgiveness, Lachey becomes that sad sack at the party who traps you in the corner and won't shut up.

Musically, everything here is inoffensive, nondescript piano-guitar pop. The longing power of the title track finds Lachey pushing his vocals farther than he ever did on 98 Degrees' ballad-heavy specialties, and his inherent smoothness is apparent on the sparse closing track, "Resolution" (and yes, he's at least trying to reach one).

Lachey co-wrote eight of these tracks, and some, such as the gritty-by-Lachey-standards "Everywhere But Here," swoop with those big choruses that fool you into thinking it's a memorable song. But it isn't, really. None of them are. But you want them to be because Lachey is so earnest, you just hope he catches a break at some point.

Each new release is graded from (the best) to (try again).