Joan Wasser spent most of the '90s and 2000s playing with everyone from the Dambuilders to Antony and the Johnsons to Jeff Buckley (with whom she was involved when he died), but of all the projects she's been involved in, Joan As Police Woman is the the finest. Real Life seems like an immediately brilliant debut, but, as is usually the case, years of experience went into it. You can hear it in Wasser's voice, womanly and raspy; in the way she and the rest of the band fuse soul, post-punk, and '70s-style singer/songwriter pop into something familiar, unique, and seemingly effortless; and in the remarkable vulnerability and strength on display throughout. Wasser took "beauty is the new punk rock" as the manifesto for Joan as Police Woman, and while it's certainly catchy and describes the group's music, there's more to it than that: in Joan as Police Woman's world, it's more challenging, more unexpected, to honor hope and beauty instead of just tearing things down. Real Life's music and words are filled with plenty of spine-tingling beauty, as well as honesty, from how the simmering strings slowly overtake the lilting piano melody on the title track, to the way Wasser offers up her heart on "Anyone": "Try me please/I'm a better dancer than it seems." Even in the supposedly confessional realm of singer/songwriters, it's rare to hear this kind of genuine, nuanced emotion; it's even rarer to have it surrounded by music that's beautifully structured and elegantly played
