“Silent” and “Brandi Carlile” don’t usually end up in the same sentence, unless this writer is telling you that he cannot stay silent about how good Brandi Carlile’s music is. The Americana singer-songwriter has one of the biggest voices in the genre, is outspoken as a queer woman in music, and recently opened up about her life story in her memoir, Broken Horses. Now, though, all that’s changing, with Carlile announcing her seventh solo album In These Silent Days, out October 1. But Carlile isn’t announcing the project quietly — she’s paired it with a characteristically huge lead single, “Right on Time.” It’s a theatrical, piano-led ballad in which Carlile plumbs what went wrong in a relationship, and it arrives alongside a video directed by Courteney Cox that finds Carlile wearing a wonderful glittery outfit and staring pensively through glass windows.
In These Silent Days, per a press release, draws on Carlile’s reflections from writing Broken Horses. She wrote the album during the pandemic, quarantined with her friends and collaborators “the twins,” Tim and Phil Hanseroth. The ten-track set also finds Carlile returning to work with producers Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings, who previously helmed her Grammy-winning last album, By the Way, I Forgive You, in 2018; Cobb also produced Carlile’s 2019 album with the Highwomen. All that’s nothing to stay silent about.
