“Returning to myself is such a lonely thing to do / but it’s the only thing to do.”
It’s been three years since Brandi Carlile’s last solo venture — 2021’s In These Silent Days — but it’s not like she went on hiatus. She became a steward for Joni Mitchell (2022’s Newport Folk Festival), a producer for Tanya Tucker and Brandy Clark (2023’s Sweet Western Sound and Brandy Clark respectively), and a collaborator with Elton John (2025’s Who Believes In Angels?). She had spent the years before as a pioneer for women in folk music, with such projects as The Highwomen and the Girls Just Wanna Weekend. It’s impossible not to hear Carlile’s name in the musical zeitgeist, and it’s always well-earned.
We’ve more recently come to know Carlile through her musical relationships with others. But what about the musical relationship with herself? Returning to Myself is Carlile’s newest project that asks this vulnerable question. Looking inward is not something Carlile is used to doing, but when she does, she does it beautifully.
Produced by Andrew Watt, Aaron Dessner of The National, and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver (a personal favorite), the record could be described best as folk-ish. Some songs fit neatly into that genre, like the title track, “A War With Time,” or “Anniversary.” Some others cross over into something more alternative, like the punk “Church & State” or the soft-rock “Human.” Carlile maneuvers expertly throughout each song, never settling into one style for too long, but never leaving behind her core identity.
Carlile is a songwriter’s songwriter. Every track feels closer to a poem than it does to a song, like private journal entries that we have the pleasure of reading. Her somewhat dread of going at this alone radiates throughout each track: “I’m standing in an open door/none of it was overrated/and I’m never gonna wanna let you go,” she sings in “A War With Time.” In “You Without Me,” she writes, “Heavy are the hands that you are free to slip right through.” These lines are just small examples of how Carlile shares her fear of solitude with us.
“Church & State” is Carlile at her angriest — a track she penned in the aftermath of the November 2024 election (“Human” was written the night before said election). The track seemingly replaces a guitar solo with an apt Thomas Jefferson quote. It’s her at her most scared and her most defiant, two emotions that often accompany loneliness.
Carlile doesn’t remain alone for the whole album. Her track “Joni” is, in essence, a biography of her aforementioned musical companion (“She’s a wild woman, and she makes me feel so tame/I can take her in a foot race, but I can’t take her anywhere”), evoking their collaborations of recent years. While “Joni” is quite obvious in its storytelling, the track that I felt was almost closer to a Joni Mitchell sound was “A Woman Oversees.” Carlile’s emotional clarity and free-flowing structure make the song feel as if it could fit into a remastered version of Mitchell’s Blue.
Perhaps her most intimate song, and the one I’ve had on heavy rotation, is the penultimate “No One Knows Us.” On an album largely about reclaiming individuality, this track invites us to join her. The production begins softly, with an acoustic guitar riff lulling us in, before slowly but confidently building up to an emotional release punctuated by drums and electric guitars. The lyrics are quietly devastating, yet self-assured; “Isn’t it hilarious to live in fear?” and “the day they drop the bomb, you won’t hear a sound” are particularly stunning.
Returning to Myself is a master class in storytelling. The journey Carlile leads us on not only gives us a focused window into her own psyche, but also gives us space to reflect on our own relationship with ourselves. We’ve watched Carlile shine beside legends, but this introspective return reminds us why we fell for her in the first place — and shows how she’s becoming a legend herself.
