CARRIE UNDERWOOD
Storyteller 19 Recordings/Arista Nashville
DON’T LOOK NOW, BUT CARRIE UNDERWOOD, at 32, already has a decade of stardom behind her. Much has changed in the country landscape during that time, its center nudged noticeably closer to pop by hitmakers lifting vocal styles and production values from R&B, EDM and hip-hop. Underwood, though, always has been something of a throwback to the country-pop ’90s, when Reba McEntire, Shania Twain, Faith Hill and Martina McBride reigned the airwaves with ample lung power, arena-rock bombast, industrial-pop sheen and, no less importantly, narrative juice. “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” the American Idol alum’s early signature hit, was a story-song, as were some of the biggest numbers on her 2012 album Blown Away.
But Storyteller — her first album in three years,…