The title of Brandi Carlile\u2019s latest record, Returning to Myself, makes an encouraging first impression. What could possibly be bad about reclaiming selfhood? Isn\u2019t that a pop psychology milestone people make guest appearances on daytime talk shows to humble brag about? But Returning to Myself considers the implicit woe of its own declaration: in order to return to oneself, one must first be lost. It\u2019s a common existential crisis that worsens when pop culture primes audiences for inspiration instead of reality checks. <\/p>\n
In fairness, Returning to Myself covers its share of triumphs on top of personal travails; it\u2019s a fool\u2019s errand to argue that Carlile indulges in miserabilism on the tracklist. Granted, in 2025, everyone who isn\u2019t ultra-rich, white, or plays a Christian on TV has at least one or fifteen things to feel miserable over. And granted, the last four years of Carlile\u2019s life have, at least going by the broad strokes, been good to her as an organizer, a producer, an advocate, a celebrant of the 2024 \u201cJoni Jams,\u201d a parent, and a partner; if Earth is looking worse for the wear, Carlile is holding strong. But when an individual comes to represent so much for so many people, drifting apart from \u201cself\u201d becomes increasingly likely, not to mention easy. <\/p>\n
Loss is loss. If one is lost to addiction or lost in a pattern of decentralized creative work, they are still lost, so Returning to Myself functions as a much-needed course correction for Carlile\u2019s career\u2014a pivot back to her own music. Girls Just Wanna Weekend<\/a> will keep on weekending; the Looking Out Foundation will, in fact, keep looking out. \u201cThere\u2019s no honor in the pilgrimage \/ Until a soul returns,\u201d Carlile trills on the record\u2019s opener and title track, driving home the importance of fulfilling personal pursuits in between giving to and doing for communities, as she does; no doubt can be cast on her contributions to her industry outside of her discography. At the same time, Carlile has to fill her own cup. If Carlile isn\u2019t making music, then the question should be raised: Who is she?<\/p>\n Returning to Myself makes a sufficient answer well before Carlile\u2019s propelling an aural stream of scorching social commentary through listeners\u2019 earbuds on \u201cChurch & State,\u201d where she ratchets up the record\u2019s momentum with one of the year\u2019s great Americana anthems, where an undulating bassline, distorted guitar chords, tambourine on the high hat, and a defiant chorus all give structure for Carlile\u2019s recounting of many Americans\u2019 post-2024 election haze: \u201cAnd in the days that quickly followed \/ they began to turn to stone \/ they couldn\u2019t stand or speak or swallow \/ they couldn\u2019t get out of bed alone.\u201d <\/p>\n Brandi Carlile is volunteering to be Soundgarden’s singer<\/a>New spider names pay tribute to Neil Gaiman, Brandi Carlile, Peter Gabriel, and others<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019m not a betting sort, but I\u2019ll wager many of you are less than eager to revisit the day they woke up to learn that a tyrant had won himself a second tenure in the land\u2019s highest office. Let Carlile do the heavy lifting for you instead. She doesn\u2019t need separation of church and state to know how to rock. (But also, there\u2019s really supposed to be a separation of church and state.) And she doesn\u2019t need to torture herself for the sake of stabilizing as an artist, either. Returning to Myself does the difficult work of cracking open the soul to let flow Carlile\u2019s vulnerability, sans traces of flagellation; coming back to the studio to lay down new songs following the substantial gap since her 2021 album In These Silent Days<\/a>, she has a great deal to say, and she says it gently but firmly, with conviction but without forced redress.<\/p>\n The heights of \u201cChurch & State,\u201d for instance, are hinted at in \u201cHuman,\u201d where Carlile affords herself, her subject, and her audience the gift of grace. \u201cBaby \/ You\u2019re only gonna hurt your back \/ Looking down like that \/ Cut yourself a little more slack,\u201d she sings to kick off the track. \u201cBaby \/ You\u2019re gonna have a heart attack \/ And they won\u2019t thank you \/ They don\u2019t make awards for that.\u201d On one hand, Carlile is an exquisite lyricist; on the other, it\u2019s very easy to imagine one of her friends or colleagues, or her wife, Catherine Shepherd, as the verse\u2019s true source, which would make Carlile a vessel of sorts for the concerns of people who care about her. In turn, that makes her the perfect candidate for relaying the same wisdom back to us, crescendoing in \u201cHuman\u201d\u2019s final minute, where the delicacy of her singing and guitar strumming bursts into bright, declarative arena rock\u2014encouragement for allowing ourselves to be imperfect, as all humans are. <\/p>\n The one exception to the rule here is Joni Mitchell, to whom Carlile dedicates an entire track\u2014\u201cJoni,\u201d of course\u2014toward the album\u2019s back half. Joni, in Carlile\u2019s accounting, is a \u201cwild woman,\u201d and cursed to boot, but her \u201ccurse\u201d is that \u201cshe doesn\u2019t suffer fools\u201d; nor does she \u201cbandage bruised egos.\u201d Returning to Myself finds a shrewd place for the song in its order, where time enough has passed that the motif has sunk in and we appreciate the dots that can be connected between Carlile and Mitchell, who likewise meant a great deal to a great many people and distinguished herself as \u201cmore\u201d than just a musician\u2014though Mitchell, of course, is no mere musician. And neither is Carlile. Maybe one day, a member of Americana\u2019s incoming generation will write a song for her just as she has for Mitchell. In the meantime, Returning to Myself succeeds in its task: bringing Carlile into a fresh creative moment where she flourishes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The title of Brandi Carlile\u2019s latest record, Returning to Myself, makes an encouraging first impression. 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