Carrie Underwood Tackles Heartache, Healing and the Heartland on Sixth Album ‘Cry Pretty’

The main thing that truly stands out about Carrie Underwood,” putting her in a category of her own, is how over-the-top her singing is. Country music, or anything even vaguely associated with the genre, has never exactly been known for flashy, showy vocals. Sure, there are some ambitious yodellers in certain niches, and there are singers who go to town in big anthemic choruses on the more commercial side of things, but nothing quite like Underwood. Many of her songs on her new album, “Cry Pretty,” start fairly unassuming, but by the time the choruses hit, they’ve escalated into a level of impassioned histrionics that are mind-blowing. It’s almost like, say, Christina Aguilera, if imagined in an alternate universe in which she was as country as could be. Each song ends up a bit like a paroxysm, with bellowing and howling spanning several octaves, and conducted with such a command of vocal ability that it’s almost laughable in its pure excess. Of course, this is meant in the best possible way, as this music ostensibly seeks to be larger than life, and succeeds brilliantly in that respect. If we only consider that Underwood rose to stardom on “American Idol,” it all seems about right, as her music seems designed to come across as the work of none other than that. It’s as American as can be, covering all the predictable topics that a country starlet would cover, with a sonic sensibility well in tune with all that we expect such issues to really sink in. And then, there’s the “idol” part a grandness and ambition of delivery in the scale of a superhero Captain America, if you will the female version.     

The title track is an effective opener, with Underwood immediately wearing her heart on her sleeve, as she continues to do for the duration of the record. “Cry Pretty” has a real ring to it, and although Underwood uses the term to describe something that is impossible, singing, “You can pretty lie… You can pretty smile… but you can’t cry pretty,” it seems that’s, in a way exactly what she’s doing. The song blows up into beefed-up, stadium fare, with massive, distorted guitars, and sets the stage for what’s to come in a rather presumptuous way. “Ghosts On the Stereo” delves further into sadness, etc. but puts a delightful spin on it, with Underwood turning it into fun, singing, “There ain’t no last call / I’m havin’ a ball with Hank Haggard and Jones.” It’s a timeless sentiment the idea of finding consolation in music, as many will surely do in this particular song.

“Low” brings back the drama teased in the first track, and it gets really real, with Underwood tapping into equal parts down-home countrified soul, and gospel-esque diva theatrics in an outpouring that can make your hair stand on end. “Backsliding” switches up the pace a little bit, sounding like a cut of department store radio fare steady beat, moderate singing, relatable, romantic vocal, you know the rest. Even in songs like this, which might be generally less adventurous, anyone who follows Underwood’s vocals in real time would have to bare testament to both its technical prowess and emotional potency. It’s easy to get caught up in the stigma and propaganda that become associated with certain styles of music, and find yourself rehashing many of the generic criticisms leveled at them even though there might be very little truth to them at all. Truth of the matter is Underwood is actually killing it, and the indie snobs who have come to adulate imperfection as the default signifier of value — living comfortably in an Emperor’s New Clothes Universe could benefit from getting a listen of Carrie Underwood. After all, she can really sing.

“Backsliding” and “Songs That We Used To Make Love To” both explore the drama of past relationships, and the temptation to unconsciously sink back into them. Underwood captures the essence of the experience effectively the idea of being decidedly opposed to any continuation of a particular relationship, but being susceptible to all the memories and emotional signifiers that can quite viciously draw you headlong back in. Some of the most enjoyable moments of the album are those when Underwood focuses on some more positive ideas — underhanded as some of them might seem. “Drinking Alone” is a prime example, a song that paints a picture of two barhoppers each having shown up alone with relationship issues of their own, but establishing a certain camaraderie in their shared personal dramas. After a narrative buildup, Underwood drops the zinger  “We should be alone, together.”

The album arguably seems more unaffectedly appealing when it sticks to the microcosmic realm of personal dynamics, but it does occasionally extend into broader concerns of a vaguely political bent. This is all very admirable and all, but the problem is that Underwood is too safe and eguivocating to make her statements ring with any real resonance. The expressed sentiments amount to little more than a disapproval of violence and an advocacy on happiness and harmony, which seems quite silly in its rather pointless obviousness. ”The Bullet” relates the struggle of a mother who has lost a child in what seems like possibly a school shooting, but cheapens the emotive effect of the song with such platitudes as, “You can blame it on hate or blame it on guns / but mamas ain’t supposed to bury their sons.” Well sure, Ms. Underwood, you could blame it on pretty much anything. With the definition of “hate” become so broad that it “hate speech” laws have effectively made freedom of speech a thing of the past, and with our attachment to the second amendment so impassioned that we’re casually overlooking the periodic massacre of children on an annual basis, this seems like a pathetic cop out of a spineless song masquerading as something meaningful.

Still, Underwood more than makes up for these lapses with the quality of her album at large. It’s quite obvious that’s she’s trying not to alienate any of her market share by taking too strong of a political or social position. However, she is a pop artist after all, so can you really blame her? She’s doing what she does extraordinarily well. If she skirts on the guns and hate issue, she makes sure to devote several songs to general ideas of positivity. “Love Wins” is very much what you would expect from the title, a song about positivity emerging triumphant. “Kingdom” is even more general, a vague statement about everything that’s wonderful and lovable. “End Up With You” is a thankful inclusion, considering the darker relationship drama songs that preceded it, as it just expresses the joy of ending up with a loved one. Finally, “The Champion,” featuring Ludacris, is full diva empowerment fare,with Underwood bellowing with earth-shattering force, over a beat that slickly, logic-defyingly finds a comfortable place between country pop and dirty south hip-hop in a way that is impressively seamless and natural.

Upon reaching the end of the album, you likely can’t help but wonder about how exhausted Underwood must feel, as she has really, demonstratively given it her all. Sure, a few songs are a bit tepid in their political vocalness, but big deal. After all, this is music, and you should appreciate it as music first and foremost. Consider that country is a quintessentially American form of music, and that America is also known worldwide — in approximately equal parts criticism and admiration — for its overblown excess. What Carrie Underwood does with this album is turn out such a performance that can’t help but make you opt with later, loving her for all her grandeur that she exemplifies with her music.

Cry Pretty” is available Sept. 14 on Apple Music.