Carrie Underwood - Carnival Ride Review

Things kick off with the opening bravado of "Flat On The Floor," a balls-to-the-wall country rocker that takes fiddle and aggressive guitar to pump up Underwood's impassioned growl. There's a lot of innuendo bubbling through the song, but when it's all stripped away it's a song about a woman scorned, hiding on her floor until the maelstrom of her most recent relationship has subsided. It's a strange number indeed, breathing fire musically, but laying down lyrics that have her "hiding from the storm till the damage gets done." An interesting juxtaposition, to be sure.

The slick country rock vibe continues, albeit in a more stripped down manner, on "All-American Girl." This is a tale about a man and woman who get married and then have a kid. The man hopes for a boy, but ends up with a girl instead. "So Small" drifts away from the pure country intonations, adding pulsating strings and a more emphatic power ballad slant to the mix. Acoustic guitar, wailing fiddle, and syncopated rhythms wrap around the down-tempo "Just A Dream," a tale about a woman getting married. In contrast "Get Out Of This Town" is about escaping your current circumstances, a pretty routine subject that just about everybody can relate to.

"Crazy Dreams" again goes for the overly slick country rock embellishment, though it sounds a wee bit like a long lost Alanis Morissette number from Jagged Little Pill, albeit filtered through heavy Nashville ambiance. Underwood's vocal intonations on this track are the best on the entire album, floating, driving, and energetic in cadence and fluctuation. The domination of banjo on the track helps, too. With "I Know You Won't'" she returns to ballad terrain, this time backed by syncopated snare rhythms and piano, allowing Underwood to display the power of her voice when it's turned down a notch. Devoid of all the slick trappings it's quite beautiful. This track proves that less is more, although the chorus does drift a bit into the melodramatic.

Crunching guitars and banjo plucking combined with aggressive fiddle turn "Last Name" into a barroom blitz. It's also one of the few songs that has Underwood getting a little risqu¿, dishing out lyrics like "Last night I got served a little bit too much of that poison, baby/last night I did things I'm not proud of and I got a little crazy/last night I met a guy on the dance floor and I let him call me baby/and I don't even know his last name/my mama would be so ashamed..." It's nice to hear Underwood letting down her hair a bit, that's for sure.

Things kick off with the opening bravado of "Flat On The Floor," a balls-to-the-wall country rocker that takes fiddle and aggressive guitar to pump up Underwood's impassioned growl. There's a lot of innuendo bubbling through the song, but when it's all stripped away it's a song about a woman scorned, hiding on her floor until the maelstrom of her most recent relationship has subsided. It's a strange number indeed, breathing fire musically, but laying down lyrics that have her "hiding from the storm till the damage gets done." An interesting juxtaposition, to be sure.

The slick country rock vibe continues, albeit in a more stripped down manner, on "All-American Girl." This is a tale about a man and woman who get married and then have a kid. The man hopes for a boy, but ends up with a girl instead. "So Small" drifts away from the pure country intonations, adding pulsating strings and a more emphatic power ballad slant to the mix. Acoustic guitar, wailing fiddle, and syncopated rhythms wrap around the down-tempo "Just A Dream," a tale about a woman getting married. In contrast "Get Out Of This Town" is about escaping your current circumstances, a pretty routine subject that just about everybody can relate to.

"Crazy Dreams" again goes for the overly slick country rock embellishment, though it sounds a wee bit like a long lost Alanis Morissette number from Jagged Little Pill, albeit filtered through heavy Nashville ambiance. Underwood's vocal intonations on this track are the best on the entire album, floating, driving, and energetic in cadence and fluctuation. The domination of banjo on the track helps, too. With "I Know You Won't'" she returns to ballad terrain, this time backed by syncopated snare rhythms and piano, allowing Underwood to display the power of her voice when it's turned down a notch. Devoid of all the slick trappings it's quite beautiful. This track proves that less is more, although the chorus does drift a bit into the melodramatic.

Crunching guitars and banjo plucking combined with aggressive fiddle turn "Last Name" into a barroom blitz. It's also one of the few songs that has Underwood getting a little risqu¿, dishing out lyrics like "Last night I got served a little bit too much of that poison, baby/last night I did things I'm not proud of and I got a little crazy/last night I met a guy on the dance floor and I let him call me baby/and I don't even know his last name/my mama would be so ashamed..." It's nice to hear Underwood letting down her hair a bit, that's for sure.