{"id":248832,"date":"2025-10-24T15:19:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/248832\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T15:19:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:19:14","slug":"brandi-carliles-returning-to-myself-is-a-bravura-turn-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/248832\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandi Carlile’s ‘Returning to Myself’ Is a Bravura Turn: Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBrandi Carlile<\/a> begins her new album with a verse raising the issue of mortality, and the question of what a godly design for these fleeting lives might be, if any at all. \u201cIs there some freewheeling watcher \/ Shooting marbles in the sky?\u201d she asks as the title track starts to unfold. \u201cHolding your years between their fingers \/ Watching it burn \u2018til the fire dies.\u201d No, fans don\u2019t have to listen long to learn: The themes are not going to be especially trivial on \u201cReturning to Myself,\u201d her eighth and possibly most moving solo release.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf you had to boil the record down, you might get away with summarizing it this way: Even bigger picture, slightly smaller sound. This much is guaranteed for most any listener: You will spend a good amount of time following lyrical prompts to think about what you\u2019re doing on the planet, in a carpe diem kind of way. You will also spend a decent amount of the album thinking about Joni Mitchell, because Carlile has picked up and set so many musical Easter eggs from her famous friend\u2019s distinctive vocal and playing styles \u2014 and also, yes, because there is a song on the record called \u201cJoni\u201d! (In which every line is about Joni Mitchell!) Also, you will be lulled, to a certain extent, because \u201cReturning to Myself\u201d goes fairly gentle on your mind and ears, except for the outlier, \u201cChurch & State,\u201d which rocks with more intensity than just about anything she\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

\n\tPutting an exception like that aside, anyhow, this is a singer\/songwriter record in the classic sense. \u201cReturning to Myself\u201d in this case involves sort of returning to the 1970s, a little bit, when you\u2019d put on an LP by a finger-picking sage and fully expect, however foolishly, that it could change your life. Who knows \u2014 this one might, in tiny increments, one acoustic guitar lick or exhortation to live fully at a time.<\/p>\n

\n\tCarlile has cited Emmylou Harris\u2019 \u201cWrecking Ball\u201d as an inspiration for how she approached this album \u2014 talking about how the collaborative nature of it changed the course of Harris\u2019 career, for starters. By inference, Andrew Watt<\/a>, her principal co-producer on the project, is Daniel Lanois in this scenario. And maybe this is the first time in history those two guys have ever been compared: However versatile he might actually be, Watt is probably most famous for making big, bombastic rock records, and Lanois\u2026 is not. But there is some pleasing difference-splitting going on here, as sound goes. Watt turns out here to be good with touches that we maybe haven\u2019t heard so much on his Ozzy or Peal Jam records, like the sound of fingers lightly brushing against strings as a hand goes up and down a guitar neck, right from the opening bars of the title song, When other instruments gradually drop in over the course of that track, they\u2019re kept at the kind of etheareal distance that a Lanois could approve of. And then, sure, ultimately, Watt is going to go big before he goes home. Neither he nor Carlile are going to let the generally quieter nature of this album stand in the way of some of the grandly anthemic moments we\u2019d expect from either of them.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are other big-name producer\/writer collaborators on the album, too, though they don\u2019t get the same screen time that Watt does. Aaron Dessner<\/a> is more limited in his contributions, but they really set the tone for \u201cReturning to Myself\u201d in a way that just counting up the number of tracks he worked on doesn\u2019t fully get at. Carlile was at Dessner\u2019s woodsy New England retreat when she wrote the poem that became the album\u2019s first song and its title track; even though that one ended up being a Watt co-production in the studio, his spiritual impact leaves a mark, at least. And on the five out of 10 tracks that Dessner did co-produce or co-write, his stamp is present to varying degrees. Most notably, you hear it in the acoustic riffing he provided as a bed for Brandi to top-line over in \u201cWar With Time.\u201d That one is pure \u201cFolklore\u201d-meets-Brandi-Carlile, and no one should complain about that.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the really interesting mongrel on this album, as production styles go, is \u201cNo One Knows Us,\u201d the penultimate track, which is a true marriage of recognizable sensibilities, starting off sounding like a piece of Dessner acoustic minimalism and winding up sounding like a Watt jam, without too much apparent stitching as it makes those changes. But you also don\u2019t really think too much about the Frankensteinian aspects of marrying Watt and Dessner signature styles when Carlile is distractingly delivering one of her most matter-of-fact-tear-jerking lyrics ever.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s fun to go on about what the respective co-producers brought to the project \u2014 and we haven\u2019t even gotten yet to Bon Iver\u2019s Justin Vernon<\/a>, who gets a shared producer credit on one track (and also is part of the band on three more). But in the end, even with the novelty of some notably different sonic touches, no one will consider this \u201ca producer\u2019s album.\u201d Carlile has never seemed not fully in control of her music, and her sensibility-ceding is only going to go so far, even with a trio of cherished newbies aboard. She continues to have the most commanding voice in contemporary popular music, for anyone interested in the intersection of prowess and the nuances of phrasing and emotion. And the material she writes for that voice is both tricky and hooky; poetic and conversational; and \u2014 the overarching thing \u2014 searingly honest. Every great voice should have a writer this remarkable living in the same house.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cReturning to Myself,\u201d the song, is framed as a debate Carlile is having with herself\u2026 and not really one that\u2019s so much about the existence of God as the opening verse would suggest. It was written at a moment when she had decided to take time off from working with Joni to spend some time alone, standing on her own two feet\u2026 but also, apparently, chafing at the idea of reflective solitude as some kind of ideal. Ultimately, she finds some value in both alone time and community \u2014 but she\u2019s not wishy-washy about it to not finally render a judgment about which side she prefers to err on. \u201cI love you and you and you,\u201d she sings in her best falsetto, and I think she\u2019s singing to her fans and friends, not the Holy Trinity (though I couldkn\u2019t rule it out). Anyway, it\u2019s the kind of inner dialogue, with weight given to two sides of a philosophical issue, that we don\u2019t often see in a pop song.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHuman,\u201d the most clear-and-present anthem on the album, was written around the time of last year\u2019s presidential election. It offers some still-timely advice, for those afflicted with chronic political agita: \u201cBaby, you\u2019re gonna have a heart attack \/ And they won\u2019t thank you \/ They don\u2019t make awards for that.\u201d Carlile points out that \u201cI don\u2019t need to see how it ends \/ To know that we\u2019ll never be here again,\u201d in case we missed that virtal information amid the doomscrolling. Perspective is everything, when we\u2019re all on the clock.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut lest anyone think she is taking a \u201cDon\u2019t Worry, Be Happy\u201d attitude toward Trumpism, there is a song later on taking MAGA seriously \u2014 \u201cChurch & State,\u201d a rocker that gets angry enough to actually include a spoken-word recitation of part of a Thomas Jefferson letter that introduced the title phrase into the lexicon. From a musical point of view, meanwhile, it quotes U2. Not quite as directly, mind you, but you will hear the Hanseroth twins<\/a> going Irish on us with this one, with Tim Hanseroth turning Edge-lord and Phil Hanseroth kicking up a bass part that is Adam Clayton-level phat. (The twins are featured throughout, as always, as players and writers, although a few tracks focus more on guest session people.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThankfully, the album\u2019s emphasis on the big themes of living in the moment doesn\u2019t mean she can\u2019t spend a few songs bearing down on the littler aspects of relationship dysfunction. \u201cA Woman Oversees,\u201d one of the more overtly Joni-esque numbers here, tells a peculiar story of a moment in a relationship where you realize you\u2019re oversharing while the other person is withholding, and the unease of reckoning with that imbalance. \u201cAnniversary\u201d also deals with a relationship gone wrong, but as far as I can tell, it\u2019s actually a love song, in which the positive aspects of a partnership that works finally blot out the unhappy memories that used to come up on the anniversary date for that regrettable affair of the past. Or maybe that\u2019s not it at all \u2014 Carlile usually couldn\u2019t be more eager to communicate with her audience, but she does have those welcome moments of leaving things a bit more mysterious.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJoni\u201d may be the most talked about song on the album, for what Carlile has to say about and to her friend, and for all the musical quirks that she borrows from Mitchell for the homage. The out-of-time rhythms coming through Blake Mills\u2019 baritone guitar parts; the Mark Isham horn solos that could be straight out of a \u201890s-era record like \u201cTaming the Tiger\u201d\u2026 it\u2019s an impressive cornucopia of Mitchell-isms that couldn\u2019t be put to better or certainly more self-conscious use. The homage is tender, but also edgy in a way that you have to imagine would impress Mitchell, with its lack of syncophantic puffery: \u201cShe doesn\u2019t suffer fools \/ She won\u2019t make cups of tea \/ And she doesn\u2019t bandage bruised egos,\u201d Carlile sings \u2014 before getting to the cool stuff that Joni Mitchell does do, like \u201cspeak in sacred language every soul could understand.\u201d Beyond the amusing jokes, Carlile\u2019s point seems to be that Mitchell doesn\u2019t need to be the world\u2019s most flagrant empath to be one of its greatest healers.<\/p>\n

\n\tCarlile has commented that some early listeners have taken this as a \u201cdivorce album,\u201d which it\u2019s decidedly not. Maybe some of the confusion comes from the song \u201cYou Without Me,\u201d or at least its title, which is not actually about the end of a love affair but the end of childhood fealty to a mother\u2019s influence and wishes. It\u2019s about the joy and terror of realizing that your kids are not your Mini-Mes, in other words, and not many parents will make it through this one without feeling 150% of the feels. The double-tracking that Watt and Carlile do with her voice here is a bit distracting \u2014 like maybe they thought an effect was needed to keep her solo vocal from sounding too simple or traditional \u2014 but the overwhelming sentiment nonetheless makes this one of Carlile\u2019s most affecting compositions to date. (If it sounds familiar, this track has been carried over, without change, from the collaborative album she had out with Elton John earlier in 2025.)<\/p>\n

\n\tAs good as that parent\/child anthem is, it\u2019s the last two tracks on the album that fire most powerfully on every cylinder. Over a slightly tense Dessner guitar lick, Carlile opens with the musical question: \u201cHey, can you get out of bed today?\u201d And if that alone doesn\u2019t get you, either as someone who suffers from depression or knows someoe who does, nothing else could. She\u2019s singing most obviously about checking in on a childhood friend who may be having some issues. But in the even greater sense, it\u2019s a beautiful song about the connections and secrets that only two people share, no matter how many other friends they may have \u2014 and the everyday tragedy of what happens when either death or mere disconnection wipes out what was built up. It\u2019s a hopeful heartbreaker.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe same can be said of the finale, \u201cA Long Goodbye,\u201d which goes even further \u2014 as the title would indicate \u2014 in repeatedly raising the spectre of death in the service of advocating for life. Carlile includes some of her most plainly autobiographical lyrics, at the beginning and end (like her first plane trip, one state over, to Idaho, as an adult, an anecdote familiar from her bestselling memoir of a few years back). But she intersperses images of others dying by accident or suicide, to say: \u201cYeah, we\u2019re all just a broken heart away \/ From making a promise that we\u2019re forced to keep.\u201d In a gorgeous coda that may be the single best minute of music she\u2019s ever put on record, Carlile makes it personal again, quoting her beloved Indigo Girls (\u201cIt\u2019s only life after all\u201d), Sammy Cahn (\u201cLet it snow\u2026\u201d) and Raymond Chandler (the title itself) in a death-accepting, life-affirming blast of transcendence. You might have to go back to the Beatles\u2019 \u201cThe End\u201d to think of an album with an ending that stirs up so much emotion with its closing sense of finality as this one.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs this Carlile\u2019s best album? That\u2019s hard to say. \u201cBy the Way, I Forgive You\u201d is pretty hard to top, as one of the landmark singer\/songwriter albums of the 21st century. That one might have been more of a tour de force, and this might be more tightly focused \u2014 musically, with its tendency toward more of an acoustic guitar core, and lyrically, with its hyperfocus on cutting through the detritus that surrounds us to get to the heart of the matter. However you want to rate it, you may come back to something she sings in \u201cA War With Time,\u201d a plaintive memory song with an encomium that applies here: \u201cNone of it was overrated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brandi Carlile begins her new album with a verse raising the issue of mortality, and the question of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[135906,109182,10480,88,135907,135908,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-248832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-aaron-dessner","9":"tag-andrew-watt","10":"tag-brandi-carlile","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-hanseroth-twins","13":"tag-justin-vernon","14":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}