Brandi Carlile ‘Returning to Myself’ review: A superb sonic evolution from Americana star

After seven years of unprecedented success following 2018’s By The Way, I Forgive You, 2021’s In These Silent Days, her recent collaborations with Elton John, Joni Mitchell and increasing mainstream recognition—Brandi Carlile draws a line in the sand, returning with an album that feels like an extended conversation with mortality, love, and the fundamental human need for connection. 

Returning to Myself finds the singer-songwriter at her most philosophically engaged, wrestling with the finite nature of existence while celebrating the messy beauty of interdependence. The title track establishes the album’s central paradox immediately. Despite its name suggesting solitary introspection, Carlile hints at co-dependency and togetherness. 

She questions why we valorise independence when the difficult, tense work of relationships & interaction is so much more interesting, tracing her journey from a single-wide mobile home to raising children on tour buses and learning at the feet of Joni Mitchell.

This preoccupation with human connection runs throughout the record, but it’s constantly shadowed by awareness of impermanence. ‘Human’ offers a meditative prayer on mortality and vulnerability, acknowledging that every generation believes it’s living through apocalyptic times. 

‘A War With Time,’ one of the album’s strongest tracks, extends this theme with devastating clarity. The song examines how we fight losing battles against time’s inexorable pull, knowing our children, parents, and great loves will eventually leave us. Yet rather than succumb to despair, Carlile finds defiant beauty in the struggle itself.

‘Anniversary’ explores how established relationships can shift into comfortable stagnation, questioning when does placid become stale. It’s refreshingly unsentimental about love’s challenges, acknowledging that sometimes something fresh reminds you how to live.

Carlile’s political consciousness surfaces on ‘Church & State,’ recorded late on US election night 2024. Channeling Pat Benatar’s ‘Love is a Battlefield’ new wave energy, the song carries the same call-to-action urgency as ‘Broken Horses’ from her previous album. It’s a moment of righteous anger that asks who will lift us up when we’ve aged and burned the whole world down.

Although one of the weaker tracks, ‘Joni’ pays tribute to Mitchell with genuine affection, celebrating her as one of the world’s great wild women. The song captures something essential about artistic mentorship and the shedding of pretense required for genuine connection. 

The fragile ‘You Without Me’ examines parenthood’s bittersweet reality—the pride and devastation of watching children become themselves.

The album’s apex arrives with ‘No One Knows Us,’ a masterful track that balances sadness, yearning, uncertainty, and hope with driving momentum. It serves as a calling card to kindred spirits who “have seen too much,” those who understand what lies beyond conventional experience. 

Rather than bleakness, on closer ‘A Long Goodbye’, Carlile finds meaning in acknowledging we begin saying goodbye the moment we open our eyes. Every experience becomes part of that extended farewell, which paradoxically makes each moment more precious.

Carlile’s voice remains her greatest instrument—capable of devastating vulnerability and soaring power, often within the same phrase. Returning to Myself ultimately reveals its title as beautifully ironic. Carlile’s journey inward leads directly back to others, confirming her belief that we find ourselves most fully in connection rather than isolation. 

Carlile is at her most honest, insightful and reflective best. It’s an album that confronts mortality without flinching while insisting that togetherness—messy, complicated, temporary—remains our finest achievement. For an artist already established as one of her generation’s brightest songwriters, this represents another significant evolution.