Brandi Carlile - In These Silent Days (2021)

For nearly 13 years Brandi Carlile was a cult favorite with a loyal fanbase before her big mainstream breakout moment in 2018 with her sixth album By the Way, I Forgive You Since then, she's become a bona-fide celebrity with a best-selling memoir, a celebrated supergroup (the Highwomen), six Grammys and a slew of A-list friends who pop up on her charming Instagram account. She's been name-checked by Barack Obama as a favorite, produced a record for Tanya Tucker, performed Joni's Blue in its entirety in concert, and released duets with Alicia Keys and Sam Smith. There's a lot riding on her follow-up album, and In These Silent Days is a knockout on a par with such classics as Tapestry, Madman Across the Water, Leon Russell, and Blue. In fact, there are shades of all those records here. It opens with the piano drama of "Right On Time," a gorgeous, sweeping ballad that's a showcase for her powerhouse voice (much like 2018's "The Joke"). The excellent "Letter to My Past" sounds like a love letter to Elton John circa 1971, while "You and Me on the Rock" is practically a tribute to Joni Mitchell's sunny early '70s jangle folk—and both are absolutely perfect. "Rock" also shows off Carlile's Bernie Taupin-level poetry: "I built paper planes when I learned to fly/ Like a 747 falling out of the sky/ I folded them crooked and now I'm wondering why/ I could always end up in the water." Carlile, who created the album with longtime bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth, worked while holed up at her Washington State "compound" during COVID lockdowns and as she was penning her stirring memoir. She has said all the "uncertainty" led her to more "dramatic" places of her brain. You hear it in the stark, spine-shivering "Mama Werewolf": "Your mama is a werewolf with long sharp teeth/ I'm up all night when the world should sleep … If my good intentions go running wild/ If I cause you pain, my own sweet child/ Won't you promise me you'll be the one/ My silver bullet in the gun." It all feels intensely personal and you might sigh with relief when she later gives her daughters the buttery lullaby "Stay Gentle." Stripped-down "This Time Tomorrow" could've been a Highwomen outtake, "Broken Horses" is rollicking Southern rock, and "Sinners, Saints and Fools" uses strings and punchy percussion like bright spotlights on Carlile's darkest corners, before going out with a wild, arena-rock flash. The album ends in the same dramatic fashion it started, with "Throwing Good After Bad"—a heartbreaker of a piano ballad that nods at all those aforementioned '70s album influences. "Are you fantasizing?/ You're taken us for granted/ I know you're bored/ You always say I'm heavy-handed," she sings and pulls at heartstrings. It's at once so personal you might blush and so universal you might cry. Stunning.

TRACKLIST

1. Brandi Carlile - Right on Time
2. Brandi Carlile - You and Me On The Rock (feat. Lucius)
3. Brandi Carlile - This Time Tomorrow
4. Brandi Carlile - Broken Horses
5. Brandi Carlile - Letter To The Past
6. Brandi Carlile - Mama Werewolf
7. Brandi Carlile - When You’re Wrong
8. Brandi Carlile - Stay Gentle
9. Brandi Carlile - Sinners, Saints and Fools
10. Brandi Carlile - Throwing Good After Bad