The Singles Jukebox

Maybe next time he’ll think before heThere won’t BE a next time…

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[5.62]

Alfred Soto: Essaying an adult “Before He Cheats” sounded fetching until, imitating Pat Benatar, she tries to outsing the boring solo despite her voice reflecting a digitized reality she has sought for a couple years.
[4]

Lauren Gilbert: OK, Carrie Underwood’s team, it’s time we talk about singles. This is a perfectly competent “Goodbye Earl”-eqsue country song, but “pretty girl marries abusive rich guy” isn’t exactly new territory, nor is “red state focus on church-going may conceal hypocrisy, news at 11.” While none of the singles off Storyteller have been bad, neither have they been particularly memorable. This is particularly frustrating because Storyteller is one of Underwood’s better offerings; there are great singles to be had (the foot-stomping goodness of “Choctaw County Affair,” the swelling vocals of “Mexico”).  “Church Bells,” on the other hand, is OK, but not great.
[4]

Anthony Easton: The picking and the slams indicate that this would be a southern melodrama, something like “Fancy.” That it is about class and class transgression deepens that complication. That the song is about church bells (and the notion that the church refuses to protect her but protects her rich husband), but the song does not actually feature any church bells themselves reflects that the protective spell of the small town does not extend to Daisy. Extra points for the chaotic guitar shreds. It’s not as good as “Independence Day” or “The Thunder Rolls,” though. 
[7]

Crystal Leww: There are a lot of things I find barf-worthy about the Chris Stapleton Saves Country Music narrative, but chief among them is the suggestion that country artists ever stopped telling compelling, real, interesting stories. “Church Bells” is a beautiful narrative about how a woman took a domestic violence situation into her own hands and it is brutal and specific and gorgeous. Carrie Underwood yet proves why she is the best, most versatile star of the genre.
[8]

Mark Sinker: Sudden urgent need to list and explore all the many many things an old-school guitar solo has been unleashed to stand in for: church bells here, of course, as celebration and as torment and as terrible warning. Not that I’ve remotely been paying attention in the right places to draw up such a list. Don’t @ me.
[7]

Josh Love: The fact it’s called “Church Bells” and the narrative pauses post-battery to show us the victimized wife praying in the back pew, listening to the bells and the choir with the reassurance “It’s gonna be alright” made me think for a moment this song was going to be about a woman relying on the hereafter to rectify earthly transgressions, which would’ve been somewhere between deeply uncomfortable and downright irresponsible but at least unexpected. Instead the abuser immediately gets his rightful sip of poisoned whiskey and bing-bang-boom everything’s tied up with a tight little bow. Too bad it’s a tale “Goodbye Earl” told 15 times better 15 years ago.
[3]

Cassy Gress: The harmony in thirds that goes through virtually the whole song is fiery, and instrumentation aside, this reminds me a lot of another song we covered recently that I really liked. I’m not sold on that 2/4 bar that separates the verses from the pre-chorus, though, and the pre-chorus itself sounds too much like the verses to act as much of a intro to anything. Third-person revenge songs seem like they should be sung in hushed, menacing ways, as a warning to any other would-be abusers or abusees out there — like well-worn ghost stories, or even maybe a carnival barker trying to spook the patrons buying tickets for the haunted house. This isn’t much different from “Before He Cheats” though.
[5]

Brad Shoup: It’s not a surprise that the bells ring for different reasons at different points in the song. But what’s remarkable is the shared tone they strike: when the drummer hit the crash, the track casts its gaze upward. There’s this awesome, nearly overwhelming sense of possibility that’s the same whether Underwood’s character is tying the knot or tying up loose ends.
[7]