She's become close friends with and a collaborator of one of her foremost musical idols, Joni Mitchell. And, of course, she formed the country/Americana supergroup The Highwomen alongside Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires, whose 2019 self-titled debut landed on a number of annual best-of lists and sent joyous shockwaves through Nashville's traditionally male-dominated country music industry. If Carlile felt pressure in making an album to follow that success, it isn't evident on In These Silent Days. Across an economical 10 tracks, Carlile sounds assured, content and, often, joyful, even when tackling difficult subjects, like embracing spirituality while rejecting the crimes of organized religion ("Sinners, Saints and Fools"), feeling like an outsider ("Letter To The Past") and navigating parenthood ("Mama Werewolf"). Sonically, the album is no doubt kin to its predecessor, as prominent harmony vocals, buoyant acoustic instrumentation and massive choruses abound. As she has since her 2005 self-titled debut, Carlile wrote and recorded In These Silent Days with twins Phil and Tim Hanseroth, her closest collaborators. They wrote the bulk of the album's material during COVID-19 lockdown, with the album's title nodding to that odd, specific quiet and isolation wrought by the ongoing pandemic. Fresh off writing that memoir, Carlile had plenty of material to chew on, much of which makes it onto the LP. While such circumstances could easily lend themselves to a dour affair, Carlile wrote, in press materials for the album, "There's plenty of reflection, but mostly it's a celebration." This is most evident sonically, as the album leans less on ballads than on arena-ready anthems, but also in the theme of redemption that runs through its lyrics. "Sure, I've been broken," Carlile seems to say, "But look how I managed to build back better." Carlile also, once again, tapped Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings, who helmed By the Way, I Forgive You, to co-produce the album. It sounds like an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to making an album, but the brokenness is, of course, the point — Carlile is just fortunate to have found a team of collaborators with whom she feels safe letting — as another of her idols, the late Leonard Cohen, might put it — her light slip through the cracks wrought by her past.