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Mandy Moore review, Silver Landings: After a tumultuous 10-year hiatus, the singer leaves her mark
Arriving in the wake of an allegedly abusive relationship with Ryan Adams, Moore’s seventh album is a defiant, sometimes profound record
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“It feels so good to sing,” Mandy Moore purrs towards the latter end of her new album, Silver Landings. “It’s been too damn long.”
A decade, to be exact. And not by choice. The 35-year-old – who at the turn of the century was jostling with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson for peak pop position – is now better known to younger generations as an actor, having starred in the hit family drama series This Is Us since 2016. But in the years between her sixth album, 2009’s Amanda Leigh, and now, she’s been “hungry” to release more music.
The trouble is, she had no representation, no music manager, and was stuck in an apparently toxic marriage to the musician Ryan Adams. Last year, when several women accused Adams of sexual misconduct in a New York Times expose (accusations he denied), Moore contributed to the piece, too. She said that her ex-husband had been psychologically abusive during their six-year marriage, manipulating and impeding her music career. “I want to make music,” she said. “I’m not going to let Ryan stop me.”
Silver Landings, then, arrives both in a blaze of glory and under a shadow. In a recent interview, Moore seemed to wrestle with how much to linger on her experience with Adams – “I can promise you he gets satisfaction being talked about in any capacity” – and the record wrestles with it, too. Sometimes to profound effect.
Musically, it’s lovely – loose, swirling California rock and country, led by gaze-out-the-train-window melodies. Moore’s voice – though never quite as distinct as her croaking, warbling Noughties peers – is clear and emotive, no affectation putting a distance between the sentiment and its delivery.
Unusually, the latter half is near flawless where the first has a few too many over-iterated choruses – as on “Easy Target” and “Tryin’ My Best, Los Angeles”. But the missteps are soon forgotten.
“Save a Little For Yourself” is a bold endorsement of self-preservation in love. On the standout, if clunkily titled “Stories Reminding Myself of Me”, Moore sings over muted guitars, “Start again, while I’m feeling up to it/ The innocent mask don’t fit like it did back then.”
“If That’s What It Takes” is a good old-fashioned love song, and a beautiful one at that, channelling the cosmic country of Kacey Musgraves. “Forgiveness”, with whispers of Spanish guitar, makes some pointed observations on abusive relationships – “I wanted to be good enough for you, until I wasn’t good enough for me” – but the focus is on Moore, not the person who’s hurt her. “Will I forgive you? You don’t get to know,” she sings, later adding, “Forgiveness is for me/ It’s in the mountain I’ve been climbing, and the mark I’m gonna leave.”
This album will leave a mark – one that is Moore’s and Moore’s alone.
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