Review Summary: Storyteller has left me blown away.
Never in American Idol history has there been a bigger country success story then Carrie Underwood. After winning the 2005 series, she proceeded to record and release several country albums filled with fantastic singles that achieved success in the USA although international success on the single charts has so far eluded the greatest female country singer in the 2010's era. But while she's been a consistent presence, she has never managed to put her name to a truly brilliant album. Well, now she's managed to tick that box thanks to Storyteller.
The first major advantage that Carrie has under her belt is that she has finally managed to properly structure an record with minimal filler, an impressive rare feat for an artist of any genre. The album open manages to start off this album in a proper thematical manner, thanks to the album starting out strong with the gripping Renegade Runaway. Not only does Runaway manage to introduce the country-rock sound that we'll be hearing a lot of over the course of the album, she also manages to make it clear that the protagonists in her songs are never to be messed with. From the "outlaw" we are introduced to in Runaway to the betrayed housewife who sends her husband flying on the next track entitled Dirty Laundry and the abused woman who seeks out fatal revenge in Church Bells, the third track, the woman in Carrie's song will not put up with any mistreatment or betrayal. The whole album is structured to perfection so the album starts off strong with the aforementioned trio and then switches between more ballad-style songs and revenge fantasy tales as needed.
The mention of Dirty Laundry also conveniently leads us to the next advantage of the album: the clever twists of certain lyrics and themes that really drive the points that her songs make. Laundry manages to use the housewife protagonist to smoothly lead us into the chorus when she decides to air his dirty laundry (quite literally) and dish out all the dirt on him that she knows. Chaser also stands out as a special example of Carrie's stunning lyrical content as the use of "chaser"heartbreaker" and finally "chase her" is simply gold.
The final major arsenal under Carrie's cowgirl belt is the way the music and the vocals work in conjunction with the lyrical content to create memorable, impactful songs. Heartbeat manages to use Sam Hunt's background vocals to create a catchy chorus even as the tempo slows down which are assisted by the beautiful country-rock sound smoothly blended in with subtle RnB flavours. The previous track Church Bells might not have been as memorable if the song didn't have such loud choruses smoothly integrated with the verses or if the song climax the way it did with the bridge smoothly leading into the final chorus which might even include actual church bells if I heard correctly.
The standout track of the album, Relapse, demonstrates just how much Carrie has evolved into an effective singer and performer. The only song to find the protagonist in a desperate and weak mindset, the pre-chorus increases tempo as the instrumental climax to the chorus which finds Carrie singing her lines in double-time before calming down as she sings the phrase "don't think I'm coming back, this is just a relapse". Not to mention that the bridge eventually ends up with Carrie singing nearly acapella and you can almost hear her voice crack which absolutely broke my heart. Same goes for when everytime Carrie asks "what can it hurt?". If you had to download one track from this record, I'd say go for this one as it has left me in an eternal state of awe and has given me a whole new level of respect for her as a fully-fledged artist.
Are there ANY flaws to this record you might be asking yourself as you're reading me singing Storyteller's phases as well as giving it the best rating possible. Well, one or two of the tracks did slip from my mind but even then those tracks aren't horrible. You could also argue that while What I Never Knew I Always Wanted is absolutely touching, it's a bit anticlimactic considering the material that came before it. And I think that it's important to note that Carrie appears to have only two volume settings: medium and loud, almost all of the songs fall under either the country-rock or the adult completely umbrella and the songs probably would have ended up sounding like each other if the material was weaker. But honestly, none of these could be considered major flaws as each of them can easily be weakened with an equally valid counterpoint leaving us with possibly the best country album since Taylor Swift gave us her last proper country-pop effort Speak Now.
So would I recommend you get this album? Definitely, especially if you're a fan of country, rock, country-rock or country-pop. In this day and age of single collections and iTunes, it's still nice to have albums that can stand as a complete collection.
