This Is Us, the primetime TV drama that has been the biggest hit of Mandy Moore’s adult life, is airing its final season right now. So the time seems right for Moore to focus on her music career again, and she’s doing just that. She’ll soon release In Real Life, the follow-up to her 2020 comeback album Silver Landings.

Like the prior LP, In Real Life was produced by former Candy Butchers leader Mike Viola. It also features Moore’s husband Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, his brother and bandmate Griffin Goldsmith, Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius, keyboardist Lee Pardini (the War on Drugs, Aimee Mann), and bassist Sebastian Steinberg (Sharon Van Etten, Phoebe Bridgers). The album’s title track and opener is out today, and it finds Moore floating in a dreamy, rootsy adult contemporary zone, reflecting on how all this is really happening and we’d better make the most of it.

Here’s her statement about the album:

So much of this record came from future-tripping on the next chapter of my life and what it might look like: what parenthood would feel like, how it would change everything, and all the excitement and trepidation that comes with that. At the same time it was about celebrating and acknowledging where we were at the moment and really trying to be completely present in the everyday — which is maybe the hardest part of the human condition.

Hear “In Real Life” and watch a trailer for the album below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “In Real Life”
02 “Heartlands”
03 “Little Dreams”
04 “Just Maybe”
05 “Living In The In Between”
06 “In Other Words”
07 “Four Moons”
08 “Little Victories”
09 “Heavy Lifting”
10 “Brand New Nowhere”
11 “Every Light”

In Real Life is out 5/13 on Verve Forecast.