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Returning to Myself
2025 studio album by Brandi Carlile From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Returning to Myself is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, released on October 24, 2025, via Interscope and Lost Highway.[1] It was announced on September 3, 2025, alongside the release of the title track as the lead single and its Floria Sigismondi-directed music video.[2][3]
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The album was praised by music critics for its lyrics, considered "philosophical" and "spiritual", and its musical production. Commercially it became Carlile's fifth top-ten album on the Billboard 200 in United States and third appearance on the UK Albums Chart.
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Background and composition
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In 2023, after her seventh studio album In These Silent Days (2021), Brandi Carlile had started to write and record songs with Elton John, including the collaboration "Never Too Late",[4] the theme to John's 2024 documentary of the same name, which was nominated for Best Original Song at the 97th Academy Awards.[5] The two artists released the collaborative album Who Believes in Angels? on April 4, 2025, through Interscope Records.[6][7]
Between 2024 and 2025, Carlile worked on a solo recording project with Andrew Watt, Aaron Dessner, and Justin Vernon at Long Pond Studio in the Hudson Valley and Henson Studios in Hollywood.[8][9] Inspiration for Returning to Myself came from Emmylou Harris's album Wrecking Ball (1995).[8] The song, "Church & State" was written on November 5, 2024, the night of the U.S. presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Carlile was in the studio with the Phil and Tim Hanseroth and Andrew Watt and was listening to U2's 'Bullet the Blue Sky' and wrote the "Church and State" as "a protest song, or at least reflection anthem, on what they saw going down in America."[10] She noted, "I got a song from Tim a couple of years ago, this beautiful concept and riff and this drop-D and all of this cognitive dissonance in the song, and I sunk my teeth into it then. And I said, whatever that is, that’s a direction for where I feel like we could go musically. And then I tucked it away in the back of my mind and forgot about it until Nov. 5."[11] The song features part of Thomas Jefferson's Thomas address to the Danbury Baptists:
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
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Critical reception
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According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Returning to Myself received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 82 out of 100 from seven critic scores.[12]
Lee Campbell of Rolling Stone UK wrote that the album "finds the singer-songwriter at her most philosophically engaged" and "at her most honest, insightful and reflective best", in which she "confronts mortality without flinching while insisting that togetherness remains our finest achievement".[18] Marcy Donelson of AllMusic described the album "personal, especially reflective one that notably features quieter, tenderer vocal performances from Carlile", praising the "contemplative, wistfully melodic, and rooted in a bolstered folk sensibility".[13] Alex Hopper of American Songwriter wrote that the grounding factor of Returning to Myself reflect an "an evolution" of "Carlile’s soul-touching voice and signature lyricism" and the music genere from "synth rock" to "pop". [20]
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Commercial performance
Returning to Myself debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200 with 35,000 album-equivalent units, becoming Carlile's fifth top-ten album in her career, the fourth as a solist.[21]
Returning to Myself debuted at thirty on the UK Albums Chart, becoming Carlile's third project to chart, and her second as a solo artist after The Story (2007).[22]
Track listing
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Personnel
Musicians
- Brandi Carlile – vocals (all tracks), background vocals (tracks 2–4, 6–7, 9–10), production (1–7, 9–10), acoustic guitar (1, 7), piano (1), electric guitar (2), Wurlitzer (2), Rhodes piano (3), guitar (8–10)
- Andrew Watt – production (1–4, 6–10), engineering (1), electric guitar (1–3, 6, 9–10), bass (2, 4, 8), percussion (2–3, 7, 9–10), synthesizer (3–4, 6, 10), guitar (4), piano (4, 7), acoustic guitar (6)
- Justin Vernon – background vocals (4), production (2), synthesizer (1–2, 10), electric guitar (1–2), acoustic guitar (2, 10), piano (2, 4)
- Aaron Dessner – production (2, 4–5, 9), organ (1), electric guitar (2, 4, 9), synthesizer (2, 4, 9), piano (4, 9), acoustic guitar (4–5, 9), percussion (4, 9), drum programming (4), Mellotron (5), synth bass (5), shaker (5), upright piano (5), electric bass (5)
- Josh Klinghoffer – synthesizer (1, 3–4, 6, 8, 10), pedal steel guitar (1), electric guitar (4), piano (6), keyboards (8), organ (8)
- Phil Hanseroth – bass (2–3, 6, 9–10), electric guitar (2)
- Tim Hanseroth – electric guitar (2, 6), acoustic guitar (3–4, 10), guitar (9)
- Matt Chamberlain – drums (2, 4, 6, 9–10), percussion (2, 4, 6)
- Chad Smith – drums (2, 7), percussion (2)
- Dave Mackay – organ (2), synthesizer (2)
- Stewart Cole – trumpet (2), French horn (2)
- SistaStrings – strings (5)
- Rob Moose – strings (5, 9)
- Blake Mills – electric guitar (7), acoustic guitar (7)
- Mark Isham – tenor saxophone (7)
- Elton John – Rhodes piano (8)
Technical
- Paul Lamalfa – engineering (1)
- Marco Sonzini – engineering (1)
- Bryce Bordone – engineering (1–2, 4, 6)
- Serban Ghenea – mixing (all tracks)
- Pete Lyman – mastering (1–7, 9–10)
- John Hanes – immersive mixing (3–4, 6)
- Matt Colton – mastering (8)
Creative
- Catherine Carlile – creative direction
- Jacob Hassett – art direction and design
- Collier Schorr – photography
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Charts
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References
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