From the urgent, heart-pounding opening chords of her new single “Into Me,” to the first time that famous voice surges like a king tide hitting a breakwater, the message is clear: Chantal Kreviazuk is back.

After seven years, three kids and collaborations with superstars like Drake, Pitbull, Christina Aguilera, Carrie Underwood, Kendrick Lamar and Pink, the JUNO Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter’s latest just-for-herself album, Hard Sail, is like a freshman’s release of jaw-dropping hits all over again: it seems to come out of nowhere, but really took a lifetime to write.

And that’s not surprising, considering what Kreviazuk’s been up to since her last album, Plain Jane, was released in 2009.

She hunkered with husband and Our Lady Peace frontman, Raine Maida, in Los Angeles to have three boys, Rowan, Lucca and Salvador. She’s acted in films. She’s dedicated herself to War Child and several other charities. She started painting, appeared on Saturday Night Live and in 2014, was made, with Maida, a member of the Order of Canada.

In other words, when it came to penning Hard Sail just for herself, she had plenty of life to write about.

“I didn’t choose to make this album. I just had things to say and so they came out…there wasn’t any pressure to record, which for an artist is a great place to be coming from, because it’s real,” she says.

“Over the past several years, I’ve kept up with the practice of song writing while staying home and being near my kids. It’s a very humbling experience to be a parent. You do the work, your little people know who they are, they have a foundation. They sort of dictated when it was going to be okay for me to be comfortable with making a record and promoting that. It’s been a very organic process.”