Reviewed by Trevor Kirk

Ana Laura Chavez, to give her her full title, is a 19 year old from Brownsville, Texas, and you may guess from her name that she has Hispanic blood in her veins, and you'd be right. In fact, she is bi-lingual, she also has a neat line in songwriting and a set of vocal pipes that a lot of girl singers would sell their grannies to possess, thanks in no small part to classical voice training and her love of opera. Songs from this very polished debut release have had mucho airplay worldwide, and it's not difficult to see why; her straightforward vocal style evokes echoes of Celine Dion. "Water" made number one on the Australian CCM chart, "Sometimes" was a Top 5 song on UCB Europe, and the rest of the album is stuffed full of radio-friendly, easy-to-listen-to, classy pop; though its strong American production flavour won't appeal to all Brits.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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