You can hear the ghosts of other peoples’ songs fade out in the first few seconds of silence before the needle drops. For four years, Brandi Carlile’s voice—that untamable, god-given force that feels like it could crack open the sky—was a vessel. She sang with the legends, walked their hallowed ground, and lent her fire to their stories. It was a generous, monumental act. But something gets lost in the echo chamber of greatness. A piece of your own myth gets traded away.

Returning To Myself is the sound of Brandi Carlile buying it back. With interest.

This isn’t the sound of a quiet retreat. It’s the sound of a reckoning in a locked room. You can feel the fingerprints of the producers here—the skeletal, atmospheric dread of Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon, the sudden, snarling squall of an Andrew Watt guitar—but they’re all in service to one thing: the reclamation of a voice. It’s Brandi, alone at the mic, stripping away the varnish and the grandeur to find the raw, unvarnished timber underneath. It’s the sound of a lady who has sung anthems for stadiums now whispering a secret to herself, and finding that whisper is more powerful than any roar.

These ten songs feel less like a collection and more like a single, sustained exhalation. There’s a sparseness here, a hard-won quiet that makes every choice matter. The creak of a piano bench, the hum of an amplifier, the ragged edge of a note held a second too long. It’s the sonic equivalent of coming home after a long, weary journey to a house that’s dark and cold, and striking a single match. In that brief flicker, you see everything you’d forgotten. Everything that was yours all along.

On standard black vinyl, the experience is elemental. This isn’t a record you put on for background noise. It’s a communion. You place the needle in the groove and you’re not just a listener; you’re a witness. This is front-porch music for the end of the world, a campfire song for one. It’s the bravest, most beautifully bruised thing she has ever done, and it feels like a secret you’re lucky to be told.

Product Details

• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 0.04 x 0.04 x 0.04 inches; 8 ounces
• Manufacturer: Brandi Carlile Band/Interscope/Lost Highway
• Original Release Date: 2025
• Label: Brandi Carlile Band/Interscope/Lost Highway
• ASIN: B0FNX4L56D
• Number of discs: 1

Let me tell you about Brandi Carlile’s new album, “Returning To Myself” – it’s the kind of record that reminds you why we fell in love with her in the first place.

After four years without a solo release, Carlile has emerged from a whirlwind of high-profile collaborations to deliver something startlingly intimate. There’s a particular magic when an artist who’s been busy working with legends (think Elton John, Joni Mitchell, and her Highwomen supergroup) returns to the solitary craft of personal songwriting. The result is like running into an old friend who’s somehow both exactly as you remember and completely transformed.

The ten songs here unfold with the careful precision of someone who’s spent years mastering their craft but remains unafraid to expose raw nerves. Carlile’s voice – that magnificent instrument that can shift from vulnerable whisper to room-shaking power within a single phrase – has never sounded more assured or emotionally precise.

I caught Carlile at Newport Folk Festival last summer where she performed an early version of the album’s standout track “Homecoming” with just an acoustic guitar. Even in that skeletal form, the song silenced the typically chatty festival crowd. On record, producers Andrew Watt, Aaron Dessner, and Justin Vernon have built a sonic landscape that perfectly frames her storytelling without overwhelming it.

This collaboration between producers from such different musical worlds (Watt’s pop sensibilities, Dessner’s indie-folk textures, Vernon’s experimental tendencies) shouldn’t work on paper, but Carlile’s clear artistic vision ties everything together. It’s like watching a master chef blend seemingly incompatible ingredients into something sublime.

What strikes me most is how Carlile has managed to translate her live energy onto vinyl. I still remember seeing her perform “The Story” at a tiny club in Seattle back in 2007, before the Grammy nominations and sold-out arena shows. There was an electricity to her performance that made everyone in that room feel like they were witnessing something important. This album captures that same electricity – the feeling that you are hearing songs that will matter to people for years to come.

If you’re already a Carlile devotee, “Returning To Myself” will feel like a homecoming. If you’re new to her work, it’s the perfect entry point – a distillation of everything that makes her one of the most vital voices in American music. Either way, this is an album that deserves to be experienced on vinyl, where Carlile’s vocal nuances and the rich production can truly shine.

The album arrives at a perfect moment – when so much music feels algorithmically designed, here’s something that could only come from one artist’s particular journey, delivered with conviction and without compromise. In returning to herself, Carlile has given us something we didn’t know we needed.