Mandy Moore

Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater; Wed 3

Photograph: Reed Krakoff

For an actor, Mandy Moore is a talented singer, just as, for a singer, she is a talented actor. Her foremost professional identity remains one of those eternally unsolved mysteries. In any case, Moore appears sensitive to her identity problem and eager to connect with the kind of grown-up audience that frequents Joe’s Pub… or perhaps even the concerts of her charming new husband, Ryan Adams. “I’m fully aware that when some people hear my name in a musical context, it’s not often equated to anything earth-shattering,” Moore writes in the press notes to her new album, Amanda Leigh.

Though hardly earth-shattering, Amanda Leigh makes a case for Moore as a tasteful musician, freed of dreaded quotation marks or slashes. The album, recorded with Mike Viola of the power-pop group Candy Butchers, pairs Moore with cowriters including the Bird and the Bee’s Inara George. It mostly draws inspiration from a mellow Los Angeles of the early ’70s, with straightforward ballads enveloped in sporadically playful arrangements.

In her quest to be taken seriously, Moore can be too serious herself. The album crests not on its staid confessionals but on a breezy pop number, “I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week,” and her music could use more of that song’s sass. “I could break your heart any day of the week,” her swaggering narrator warns. “Squeeze the life out of you / Wrap you in sheets.” Is that noise in the background Ryan Adams trembling in his boots?—Jay Ruttenberg

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