Shortly after releasing her sophomore album in 2007, US-based singer-songwriter Juliet Lloyd walked away from music completely for more than 10 years, feeling burned out and unhappy with her career progression like so many other independent artists. After going through a divorce in 2019 and in the midst of a global pandemic, she found herself pulled back toward the siren call of songwriting and again making the leap to pursue it full time. Her latest album ‘Carnival’, released in 2024, is in many ways the culmination of those decisions, and the reintroduction of an artist who now has the wisdom of experience.

There’s an unmistakable urgency you can feel when a song is written and performed from a place of complete honesty. That feeling permeates ‘Carnival’. “I’ve always been envious of writers who say they write songs because they have to, because they had these things they just had to get out of themselves,” Juliet says. “I had never really felt that way until this album. I’ve become someone who writes because they have to.”

Stylistically, ‘Carnival’ draws on a range of influences from Laurel Canyon-era singer/songwriters, to Lilith Fair rockers, to confessional country/folk balladeers, to indie pop. The central theme of the record and that of its title track is not being too precious about any one experience or decision. Take them for what they are, live in the moment, and move on when they’re done. It acknowledges also that memory can be subjective, and ambiguous—was an experience ultimately a good thing or a bad thing? And whose memory can you rely on to determine the answer to that question?

‘Carnival’ doesn’t just deal with the complexities of ending relationships, it also deals with all the feelings that come with moving on. The album’snine songs feature evocative storytelling that reveals a simple truth: when the carnival inevitably leaves town, you’re left with an empty parking lot. And how you remember, it is a choice. As Juliet sings in the title track, “If only there was a way you could bottle up that feeling / and you’d drink it in / when the days are short and you long.”

Across her 20+ year career, Juliet has been admittedly stylistically non-monogamous. Her first full-length album, ‘All Dressed Up’, was released in 2005 and was heavily jazz-influenced- a label that she rejected at the time. “I am a piano player and a woman, so I was immediately compared to Norah Jones—and I bristled at that,” Juliet says. “Listening back now, I can totally see that it was true, and it of course wasn’t a bad thing.” Her follow-up release ‘Leave the Light On,’ came out two years later and featured a slick piano-pop production that led to five of its songs being placed on reality TV shows on MTV and VH1. Coming back after her 10-year break from writing and recording, Juliet released ‘High Road’, a collection of five Americana/soul-tinged songs produced by Jim Ebert (Meredith Brooks, Shai) that earned her widespread recognition and songwriting awards both in her home region of DC as well as nationally.

Now with her first ever UK tour scheduled for July 2025, Juliet is launching a new single ‘Reno Cure’, which follows recent 2025 single ‘Wild Again’ and which like ‘Carnival’, were both written with and produced by Todd Wright (Lucy Woodward, Butch Walker, Toby Lightman). ‘Reno Cure’ is an epic, emotionally packed, Americana-tinged track that sees Juliet once again dealing with the ending of her relationship.

“I thought I was done writing about divorce,” says Juliet. “My last album, Carnival, was full of songs inspired by the experience of going through it, the aftermath, and moving on. Turns out I wasn’t quite done with the topic. Last year, I read a book about the famous “divorce ranches” in Reno, Nevada in the 1950s. At the time, Nevada had the loosest divorce laws in the country. All you had to do was reside in the state for six weeks, and you could get a no-fault divorce.

So, a lot of wealthy socialite women would stay at these so-called divorce ranches where they could quietly get divorced and avoid the shame and some of the public scrutiny. It got me thinking a lot again about shame and judgement. For a long time, I didn’t even say the word out loud when referring to my own experience. I did a bunch of research about these ranches and what I found was so evocative and weirdly romantic, in a tacky old-west America kind of way. I actually wrote an entirely different version of this song a year ago and it was full of really detailed references, but it didn’t feel quite right. I stripped it back to its most abstract imagery and I think the story that comes through is even more evocative now, and I love that it exists in both the past and the present”, she further reveals.

Catch Juliet Lloyd on her UK tour this July:

1st July: The Folklore Rooms / Brighton
2nd July: The Hyde Tavern / Winchester
3rd July: Hen and Chicken / Bristol (CRH Music promotions)
4th July: Artisan Tap Hartshill / Stoke-on-Trent

5th July: Waggon & Horses, Nottingham

6th July: Cafe#9 / Sheffield
7th July: Hyde Park Book Club / Leeds
10th July: FortyFive Vinyl Café / York
11th July: The Muddy Puddle / London
13th July: The Wrotham Arms / Broadstairs