Carly Simon’s 24th solo full-length, and first since 2009’s Never Been Gone, comes at a challenging moment in the artist’s life. Weeks before the release of Comes in Waves, the singer-songwriter announced that she had been diagnosed with both Parkinson’s disease and skin cancer, and that her health had prompted a retreat from the public eye—but not the studio. She began to write songs while navigating her nervous system’s new normal and recovering from surgeries, and refurbished pieces of half-written tunes—verses, melodies, half-formed ideas collected over the years—that were finally ready to be made whole. She worked alongside her children, Ben and Sally Taylor (whose father, James Taylor, is Simon’s ex-husband and fellow beloved folk-rock figure), as well as other close friends and longtime collaborators, as she healed. Comes in Waves is very much the product of this period—one in which Simon had the chance to slow down, reflect on her life, and seek comfort. Introspective, vulnerable, and, at times, cheeky and eccentric, it’s exactly what you’d expect from an artist weathering such a transformative period in halcyon years, let alone their career. Love and relationships in all their forms, reliable inspirations for Simon, remain constants here, and Comes in Waves takes the form of memoir in places. “Maybe I Never Loved You” winks at her marriage to Taylor (“I married you, we had a kid/That counts for something”), and she revisits childhood memories with “The Father Daughter Dance.” The album’s finale, “Do It Anyway,” presents Simon at her most candid as she sings a motivational anthem, over piano, handclaps, and a modest backing choir, seemingly to herself: “What are those words of wisdom that my mama said? If you think you can’t face the day/If you’re sure you can’t win the game/If you swear you can’t find a way/Do it anyway.”